By Abdelghaffar
Amoka
Ahmadu Bello
University, Zaria, Nigeria
12/10/2025
ASUU has declared a warning strike effective from 13th October 2025 and President Tinubu jets out of the country. There was a hasty reaction from the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa. Of course, that was expected from a man who had bragged for months that there would be no more ASUU strike ever again. But we were expecting something else and not the Buhari's executed "no work no pay" threat. Rather than the "no work no pay" threat which is not a new thing, I was expecting a threat that the minister will sack all ASUU members and replace them with his friends in Yankee and professors of practice and numerous honorary doctorates in Nigeria.
But unfortunately, people from
Yankee only come for political appointments with fantastic conditions of
service and financial benefits that their jobs in Yankee can't give them. They
won't leave their comfort zone in the US to come to pick an appointment in our
public universities for a slave wage. Not even our friends abroad, who see
everything wrong with the ASUU approach, are willing to come and pick up a
lecturing job in our public universities. Their idea of patriotism and giving
back to the country is lobbying for political appointments.
The minister said they have been
sincere and have approved a robust teaching allowance for the lecturers. He
refuses to mention what was approved for the supposed robust teaching
allowance, when it was approved, and who has been paid. You are right with your
sincerity claim. Sincerity is inaugurating a renegotiation committee, received
the report 3 months later, keeping your renegotiation committee report for 9
months without action and only to wake up on the 10th month after submission to
re-inaugurate the6 same committee (expanded) a year after the first
inauguration for the same renegotiation. Sincerity is jettisoning what was
renegotiated and offering an award of 25% of the current salary. They expected
ASUU to jump at it, having been pushed below the poverty line.
Keeping academics on the same
salary for 16 years is a calculated wickedness and a deliberate ploy to break
them and what they stand for. The idea is to kill their ideological strength by
making their brain preoccupied with what to eat for the day. This is to ensure
they have no time to think of ideas that could threaten the status quo. When
last did the political class engage the Nigerian academics? They don't want a
true academic close by except for the academics that are like them.
Academics are teachers who light
minds. Researchers who chase the truth. Critics who challenge mediocrity.
Visionaries who imagine better futures. You can only play this role well when
you don't have to worry about how to survive for the month. But unfortunately,
the policy of the ruling class is to keep everyone, including academics, poor
as poverty is the best tool to keep everyone under control.
It has been an engaging 2 years
with the FG. Engagements that have not yielded significant outcomes. ASUU
deliberately gave over two years to the government of President Tinubu to do
the needful. But they took it as a weakness and went around bragging and
misinforming the public. Nigeria is our country and the public universities are
our institutions.
The nation can bear witness that
ASUU have been patient for over two years with the government. This is the time
for action and not threat. This is not just about the students being in school,
they should be in school as they should. But if you think the no work, no pay
is the solution to the glaring crisis in university education, the ball is in
your court.
Academics are the intellectual
backbone of society. In a country powered by knowledge, academics are the
custodians of civilisation. Should academics that are supposed to be the light
of a nation be allowed to be begging the political class before they can feed
themselves and their families, we can kiss the nation goodbye.
To our students, ASUU has every
right to a protest strike. You also have the right to stage protests for an end
to the strike. Sleeping behind your mommy and lamenting that when 2 elephants
fight, it's the grass that suffers. There is only one elephant (the political
class), the rest of us are grass. The lecturers and the students
are the grasses.
