SSANU/NASU Strike: The Madness Continues -By Roma Nzeribe

Last year, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, one of the most powerful labour groups in Nigeria left the nation reeling when they embarked on a ten month-strike.

Students suddenly found themselves out of school due to no fault of theirs and had to pause their education. Many got involved in the good, the bad and the ugly but that’s by the way.

This year, the student body were overjoyed (not everyone though) when the strike was called off. They all returned to their institutions of higher learning and tried to remember their registration numbers.

As we speak, these poor youth are being rushed to finish at most three semesters before the year’s end so they can meet up with their counterparts in private/ foreign universities.

Just as the students were recovering from ASUU strike, they were given another debilitating hit on Friday, the fifth of February, 2021 when the Senior Staff Association of Universities and the Non-Academic Staff of Universities announced they were embarking on a nation-wide strike due to unpaid salaries.

As a student, I can attest to the fact that the student body was not as worried as they had been during the ASUU strike, because lectures still are still going on.

That was until every non-academic staff including hostel security and porters left, leaving students to the mercy of anyone so inclined to enter hostels.

In the remote village of Ikwo, where Alex Ekwueme Federal University (fondly called AE-FUNAI) is located, the striking workers took their anger at the Federal Government’s neglect a step further by disconnecting the electricity everywhere on campus, even in the hostels.

One begins to wonder, what do they hope to gain by leaving innocent students in the dark, literally? Are the students owing them?

It is very painful that whenever ASUU, SSANU and NASU are on strike, they take out their grievances on students. A clear case of the grass suffering as a result of two elephants fighting.

As I type this article in a dark stuffy room, three things are running through my mind.

One: How am I supposed to survive the hot night without a fan?

Two: Is it an offense to study in a public university in Nigeria?

Three: How will disconnecting the electricity of students solve the problems of SSANU and NASU?

To these questions, I have no answer.

All I know is that this madness of punishing students for the grievances of the Federal Government must stop!