ASUU Strike: Open Letter To FG, ASUU, NANS, And Alumni Associations (1) -By Alabi Ayokunmi Ayomikun

It is with great pain that I write to express and further restate MY and OUR displeasure, which although is not unknown, as regards the ASUU strike. Things are falling apart, the center cannot hold! There is fire on the mountain, and nobody seems to be on the run; rather we all remain complicit in this pitiable and damnable situation, whether by way of nodding, keeping quiet, folding our arms, pretending not to see or hear anything, standing akimbo, staying aloof, being hypocritical, afraid to speak the truth, putting words under the tongue to say, papering over cracks, failing to put round pegs in round holes, and fiddling while Rome burns like King Nero.

Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU) strikes have become more stable than the Nigerian Universities Calendar. ASUU’s first and second-strike actions were in 1988 and 1992 on account of fair wages and university autonomy. In 1999, universities were shut for 5 months, 3 months in 2001, 2 weeks in 2002, 6 months in 2003, 2 weeks in 2005, a week in 2006, 3 months in 2007, 1 week in 2008, 4 months in 2009, 5 months in 2010, 2 months in 2011, 5 months in 2013, 1 month in 2017, 3 months in 2018, and 9 months in 2020, which equals nothing less than 50 months, about 5 years of students’ lives wasted away and still, these demands are yet to be met.

On February 14, 2022, ASUU declared a one-month warning strike. They extended it for another 8 weeks on March 14, and then there was an additional 12-week rollover, which took effect from May 9, 2022. The extension ironically gave the government more time to satisfactorily resolve all outstanding issues, while also noting the failure of the Federal Government to live up to its responsibilities despite several exhaustive deliberations with respect to the 2009 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action (MOA), which has become a constant basis for the ASSU’s annual strike ritual.

I am more opinionated, sympathetic, and empathetic towards the 2020/2021 graduating class of government universities, a class which I fall into and better characterized using the words of ‘Sola Owonibi’ in the Poem ‘HOMELESS BUT NOT HOPELESS’. Despite being holed-up in our homes since the beginning of the year, WE ARE HOMELESS, depicted by the uncertainty of this current phase, we can’t tell whether we are graduates nor undergraduates, we can neither apply for undergraduate nor graduate scholarships, internships and job employment opportunities. Most of us gained admission and resumed school in 2016 while some in 2017, and it’s been 5 – 6 years till now with no hope of proceeding for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) when certain results are yet to be released or school clearance done. More sobriety to the plight of Law Students of this class who are uncertain if either Law School or NYSC is possible this year.

While it is undebatable, due to various evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, that, the Federal Government is unconcerned about addressing issues of education funding across all levels; hence, ASUU cannot be faulted or blamed for advocating for increased funding, a conducive environment, improved learning conditions, and welfare for its members. However, it is also not untrue that these endless academic disruptions, which is the only language that has proven useful in at least drawing the Federal Government’s attention, undermines the same university education that ASSU seeks to protect and fight for, thus leaving affected students, and the general populace at large in a dilemma as to who to blame and the way forward.

There is a huge deficit in Nigeria’s budgetary allocation for education compared to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) 15–20% benchmark recommendation of the total budget. It has hovered between 4 and 10%; in 2016, it was 7.92%, 6.12% in 2017, 7.14% in 2018, 7.12% in 2019, 5.62% in 2020, 5.68% in 2021, and 4.30% in 2022, an abysmally low figure, placing us far behind smaller and less endowed nations in terms of education investment. Other African countries less endowed with human and natural resources and oil wealth are leaving us behind in the race for modern development because they see, identify, recognize, acknowledge, and fund education as a tool for national development.

Rather than addressing these age-long issues, the government and the elite Nigerians continue to create more institutions, which, of course, are of doubtful value because they sit on the legs of an educational system that is fraught with terminal problems, further burdening the system and mining the frustration of parents, thereby leading to a diversion of revenue that could have been generated if the government had done what is expected of them.

The leadership of the once radical and fearful National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has merely been reduced to a toothless bulldog who only barks but does not bite! The leadership of the Association, via the President, Sunday Asefon, was reported to have threatened that primary elections of political parties would not hold in Abuja if the ASUU strike is not resolved. It’s so appalling that the same President congratulated the Governor-Elect of the just concluded Ekiti Election, Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji (BAO), stating categorically that ‘all polling units in our campuses delivered for BAO’ – campuses which your students have been out of, an affront to the historic and heroic legacies of NANS who in times past were at the vanguard of varying struggles even against the Military regime.

Till I write again at a latter time, I appeal to all stakeholders and relevant quarters on behalf of thousands of other Nigerian students; ‘we are a necessary part of your existence and the society, major fragments of the nation and the globe, as the day chameleons to night, you slump in the warmth of your beds and heat of your loved ones, but we are embraced with the coziness and uncertainty of this phase and left to deal with the aftermath’ – We want to go back to school and continues with our lives!

Alabi Ayokunmi Ayomikun, knows not if he is an undergraduate or graduate, but he writes from Lagos, Nigeria, and can be reached via alabiayokunmi@yahoo.com