ASUU STRIKE AND BUHARI GOV'T; INSENSITIVITY OR LESS IMPORTANT
By; Hon. Bilyaminu Bala Yahya (08109316250)

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) embarked on a total, comprehensive and indefinite strike on November 4, 2018 to amount pressure on the federal government to fulfill an agreement they entered since 2009. The industrial action by the university lecturers has paralyzed and led to the shutdown of public tertiary institutions in the country. The consequences of the strike is glaring as university students are redundant at home, research activities stopped, crime rate by idle students skyrocketing, shop owners and food vendors in universities shutting down leading to increase in the already high unemployment rate in the country. Strike action in Nigeria by university lecturers have turned out to be serial and more properly "perennial phenomenon". The present ASUU strike action is into the fourth week (almost a month) and yet there is no commitment by Muhammadu Buhari led-gov't to end it. Infact, the president's body language and actions in referenced to the strike seems to depict insensitivity and nonchalant attitude. Education as a core key and bedrock to national development needs to be handle with all sense of diligence, commitment, importance and dedication. Any nation that childishly handle its education sector is heading to a doom. The country will be govern by illiterates. Countries like USA, China, India, Brazil and host of other great nations attained their developmental state for the great importance and attention they give to education. They make education and human capital development a priority area for investment. Educated citizens are productive. Productive citizens are assets and ingredients for attaining development. It is not an exaggeration to say Nigerian universities are "glorified" secondary schools compared to other nations even in Africa. Lack of standard laboratories, libraries, conducive lecture theatres and classrooms, plagiarism, constant strike by university lecturers and internet inaccessibility are common features that depict Nigerian universities. Gone are the days when people from the neighbouring countries such as Ghana, Benin Republic, Chad, Niger, Cameroon etc used to come to Nigeria for tertiary education. Reverse now is the case. Nigerians travel even to Niger Republic for tertiary education. Half-baked graduates who plagiarized projects to graduate are the graduate. Imagine a graduate of university can not make 5 correct sentences in a standard English. This is the sorry, pathetic and deplorable state of the Nigerian tertiary institutions. When President Muhammadu Buhari came on board in 2015 there were jubilations all over the country. Everyone was expecting the president to put his CHANGE agenda into a reality. Three years down the line, the story was not a different one from the previous particularly with in the education sector. Infact, one can proclaimed that the previous gov't handled tertiary education stuffs better than the Buhari administration. During the Jonathan administration in 2013, he entered into a meeting with ASUU under Dr. Nasir Fagge that lasted for more than 9hrs just to plead with them to get back to class room. Indeed the meeting yielded a fruitful result. Ever since President Muhammadu Buhari assumed the presidency, he never sat with ASUU to negotiate or listen to the striking lecturers. He only carried out his attitudes of "I direct so so and so to handle it". Before ASUU embarked on the present strike they sent several letters to the concerned authorities for actions. But it didn't yield any result. They also went on to carried out a one week warning strike. This again has also not yielded any result. ASUU has no any other option but to embarked on the present strike action which is "indefinite, comprehensive and total". So my questions are what has President Muhammadu Buhari and his cabinets been doing all the while ASUU has been going on the several types of strike? If his Ministers and Aides are not informing him, doesn't he read newspapers? Or aren't his children in public tertiary institutions disturbing him at home? Where are the noises that Mal Adamu Adamu was making on the pages of newspapers when he was in the opposition? And to Christ Ngige is it true that his child is in public tertiary institution in Nigeria? The week ASUU embarked on strike President Buhari traveled to France to attend a meeting which I think it wasn't necessary for him to attend. The greatest humiliation the striking lecturers received was when the Ekiti State Governor Dr. Kayode Fayemi, who accompanied the president to France told the world that Nigerian Professors earned more than state governors instead of him to plead with them. The statement wasn't only humiliating but ridiculous. Why President Buhari can't call the striking lecturers to sit and hear from them if his Ministers can not handle the issue? Is this the NEXT LEVEL in education he is promising Nigerians? All these questions and host of others very irritating will only leave one to be asking is Buhari gov't insensitive about the tertiary education or is it because it not important? Just today the ASUU National President informed journalists that students will stay longer at home because the gov't is not committed to ending the strike. At this juncture, I want to personally appeal to ASUU to restrategize and adopt a new method of demanding for their rights and the revitalisation of the tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Reason being that the current strategy is not working because the gov't is insensitive and nonchalant. It is only the students who are sons and daughters of poor masses of Nigeria that suffered the consequences.

Another stupid Ipob thread