By Prof. Abdelghaffar Amoka
21/10/2025
Wow! I can't believe the ASUU 14-day Warning Strike is in its second week. So, ASUU was not consumed with the fear of our Yankee minister's No-work No-pay threat as expected? This is the problem when you make an education minister from a Nigerian who has spent his work life in hospitals abroad. He has a weak connection with the reality of the Nigerian system and has poor knowledge of the people and the education system he is to deal with.
The president has already
declared that ASUU won't go on strike during his government. Rather than the
Minister asking His Excellency about his planned package to keep ASUU off
strike, he was briefed on the APC's 8-month starvation strategy of the Buhari-led
government. He saw sense in it and concluded that to keep assuring the
president that the ASUU experience of a No-work No-pay in 2022 will stop the
strike and stabilise the university system. And we were shocked that he was
shocked that ASUU declared the ongoing warning strike that ended his bragging
rights. His appointment is not a bad idea after all. He is getting to
understand the difference between medicine and education, and a medical doctor
and an academic.
For every strike, everyone always
narrowed the public universities' crisis to the ASUU problem, with calls for
ASUU to find an alternative to the strike. But unfortunately, no matter the
approach of ASUU, everyone assumes all is well with our university education
till a strike is declared, then everyone becomes a Senior Advocate of Dialogue
(SAD). Now, everyone wants to intervene on camera with media credit. The
intervention of the National Assembly is quite interesting and some have
described it as hypocritical. Over the last 2 years, we have not heard of any
discussion on the floors of the lower and upper chambers of the National
Assembly on steps to end the perennial ASUU strike that has become a part of
our academic calendar.
The speech from Adams Oshiomole
was impressive and so powerful that it could make people shout: What genuine
care about public universities. He took on the government that he is a part of.
To some people, the speech should have ended the strike right there at the
National Assembly. But where were they over the last 2 years? I remember
watching him on Channels TV shortly after the fuel subsidy was removed in May
2023. In defence of subsidy removal, he said the proceeds can be channelled to
improve the education and healthcare sectors. He specifically mentioned the
amount that ASUU is requesting the government to use for the revitalisation of
public universities and the remuneration of lecturers. What has changed?
Nothing!
After Buhari's government
depreciated the average salary of a professor from 3,000 USD to less than 1,000
USD per month, the 2023 naira devaluation led to the net salary of a professor
dropping from the equivalent of 900 USD during the Buhari-led APC government to
260 USD in 2023. The subsidy removal crashed the purchasing power of everyone
including the academics. But the beautiful speech from Oshiomole in 2023
started and ended on TV. There was no legislative action to compel the
executive arm of the government to do the needful for the university system.
There was no appropriation
towards ending the age-long crisis in public universities. Is the poor
attention to public education connected to the fact that their kids are not in
our public universities? A motion from a House of Representatives member to compel
pubic officers to enrol their kids in public schools was killed on arrival. Why
are they afraid of quality public education? Why are their actions encouraging
the JAPA syndrome? Maybe we need to find a way to force their kids to attend
public schools. Public institutions will never get the required attention till
they begin to feel our pain.
In another development, one of
Yesterday-men, a former Senator and former Special Assistant to a president,
claimed FG has painstakingly addressed all the issues raised by ASUU and that
rather than invoking No-work No-pay, FG should sue ASUU for contempt of the
court. Then, I wonder if political opportunities are used to chase away common
sense, or they have just vowed to kill the public education system, or he is
looking for a chance for an invitation to join the gang of Today-men. It is
embarrassing to the nation for an old man with a national honour to be behaving
like someone who forgot his thinking cap with his wife.
The target of the warning strike
is to smoke them out to the waiting table for a deal. The message has been
passed, and we are at the table talking. It has also demonstrated that the
celebrated 2 years of no-strike wasn't because all is well or the lecturers are
weak and scared of No-work No-pay. They only gave Tinubu's government enough
time to act but misunderstood the 2 years of patience and perseverance to be
weakness. When they are out on the table and still sleeping, the next target is
persuading them with what we have to agree on the already drafted document.
That is the ultimate goal.
There was a proposal from the
government for a slight increase in the 25% salary increase award to 35%, an
insult that the Union outrightly rejected. The NASS is intervening, and they
have gotten first-hand information on the issue at stake from the ASUU
president. A follow-up of a warning strike is a full-blown strike. I hope they
will ensure that after this warning strike, ASUU won't be given a reason for an
indefinite strike. We are not afraid of a strike.
I am for the suspension of the
warning strike since we have dragged them to the discussion table, and as the
warning strike is about to end, we hope that in the next 4 weeks, we get a deal
that will be in the interest of the nation's education system so that the Union
is not pushed into an indefinite strike. We can't be paying Nigerian professors
2,000 USD per month to go help teach Ugandans, Sierra Leonians, Kenyans, etc,
in their respective countries under Nigeria's TAC scheme, but pay the same
professors an equivalent of 350 USD per month to teach Nigerian students. It
makes no sense.
We can't be bragging to be the
Giant of Africa but smaller African countries are draining our best brains and
paying them up to 4,000 USD per month. It makes no sense. A professor can't be
sick or in an emergency situation, and he can't boast of ₦500,000 in his account. It
makes no sense.
To our Senior Advocate of
Dialogue (SAD), ASUU never have an issue with dialogue but your friends in
government. We have been in dialogue since 2013 for the renegotiation of the
2009 Agreement and they have refused. The Buhari-led government set up 3 Renegotiation
committees and chucked the report in the bin. The Tinubu-led government has
inaugurated the same committees 3 times within one year. The height of poverty
of sincerity.
The Senior Advocates of Dialogue
(SAD) argument was that strike actions affect students' academic activities.
For us, it is not enough for students to just be in school under conditions
that you don't want your kids to study. We want the students to be in school to
study under well-motivated conditions.
Please tell your friends in the
government to conclude the dialogue within the next 4 weeks to avert a
full-blown strike. It is a sadist that is not concerned that a man (the
country's intellectual) who was earning an equivalent of 3,000 USD in 2010 is now
earning an equivalent of 350 USD in 2025. It is a calculated wickedness to keep
a group of workers (intellectuals) on the same salary for 16 years and refuse
to review it.
May ASUU never get tired of the
fight for the survival of our public universities else....
