ASUU STRIKE – THE CANCER IN NIGERIA’S TETIARY EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

No predicament has consistently crippled Nigeria’s educational system like the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU) strike. It is a pointer to the failure of leadership that has continually haunted Nigeria as a nation. The least problem a country such as Nigeria should be battling is a dead educational system. Countries smaller in land mass and economy do not experience any hitch in educating her populace. Few weeks ago, Liberia’s president declared free education in all tertiary institution in Liberia. Nigeria can do the same without any economic pain. If a nation of fifty eight years cannot boast of a stable educational system, I wonder what they can boast of.

Isn’t it a pitiable situation that students can no longer accurately predict their year of graduation? Must the Government always destabilize the plans of innocent undergraduates because of their nonchalant attitude towards education? Can we not have straight five years of uninterrupted university education free of strike and irrelevant holidays? Students that signed up for four years courses have received mandatory elongation courtesy the Federal Government of Nigeria and ASUU. Anyways, if two elephants fights, the grasses are always the unfortunate victims.

But for how long will innocent Nigeria students be victims? We cannot blame ASUU because they are fighting for the right thing. Learning aids and facilities in Nigerian Universities are deteriorating and some deteriorated. Many universities are short staffed. Classrooms are not conducive for learning as well to mention a few of the challenges.

All of Nigeria’s problem is an overflow of poor governance. No administration in Nigeria has ever exhibited to us that education is at the core of their administration. The worst in recent times is this current administration led by President Buhari. ASUU strike has consistently stem out of a breached agreement between the FG and ASUU. Every administration that comes into power contributes their quota to what the previous administration has done to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by previous government. The best we’ve seen in recent times toward the adherence to this agreement was during the last administration led by GEJ. To be truthful, our current president, the Next Level lead ambassador, has paid no attention to the MOU signed by the previous administration and ASUU. Perhaps, nepotism and loyalty to his political community hold a high esteem in his heart than the future of Nigeria students.

The national assembly budget for 2017 was #125bn for 469 Nigeria Legislators. This figure implies that each legislator will go home with #266,524,520. In the same year, #605bn was allotted to education with Nigeria having a total of 78million students from Primary to Tertiary institutions. By calculation, it means that the government spent #7,756 on each student in Nigeria. Out of this fund, corrupt government official will take their share of it. No administration has scored so poorly in this area.

Almost all old and recent Nigeria University Students has tasted from the bitter experience of ASUU strike. The menace became conspicuous as well as cancerous to our educational system since 1999 with a 5 months strike before it became almost an annual festival of academic delay. If followed with ASUU strikes of 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2017 with 3months 2weeks, 6months 3days, 1week, 3months 1week, 4months, 5months 1week, 3months 1week, 5months 15days, and 1month 6days respectively. We hope this strike of 2018 will not be up to a year considering we are in the New Level era as declared by president Buhari.

Our Leaders, the ones the majority blindly and hungrily ushered into power out of ignorance are less concerned if students stay at home for years. President Buhari is yet to utter a statement concerning this – a sign that we have a president not concerned about the populace. Perhaps because he is, ironically, full of life, because we haven’t seen him in the news lately as much as we see his Vice President.

Members of our elite political community have no children studying here. If they are not in American Universities, they are at European Universities. They know that their inputs and investments in our educational sector cannot produce significant results. So, they use public funds to send their wards abroad for schooling. Upon their graduation and arrival back to Nigeria, they put them in charge of government parastatals or even make them their successors in governance. Their dream is to make the rest of us illiterates, so we do not understand what the economy and balance sheet is saying.

After two meetings between ASUU and the FG, there is still no hope that the strike will end soon. I am supposed to graduate this year, but I cannot achieve that again, courtesy, the Federal Government of Nigeria. It is shameful that we cannot study with an uninterrupted calendar again. We cannot plan our lives with Nigeria Public Tertiary Education Calendar. I cannot predict how old I will be when I get a Masters Degree. I cannot predict my age when I will be married. No thanks to this poor administration for prolonging our days in school.

Nigeria must rise. We cannot continue like this.