ASUU again? No; it is the government
On 23/10/25, ASUU discounted its warning strike by two days due to ‘the efforts by students, parents and NLC’. I hope that the government reciprocates this practical goodwill. Our people say that thieves become ashamed and take cover when the moon is bright. Unfortunately, our government ‘no get shame’! Those who prevailed on ASUU to ‘cool temper’ should also prevail on the government to do the needful. I will still conclude this series, which started with my interventions in 2009 and 2022.
People wrongly see this as an ASUU affair rather than a national calamity. I visited UI this year (2009), and if all the money in question was invested in UI alone, it could not restore its glory. Everybody asks ASUU to soft-pedal while excusing the government’s perfidies. ASUU should consider the interests of students, but who considers ASUU’s interests? ALL the educational unions are on strike, but the government is dishing out powdered lies while Dr Egwu is busy partying (see the exclusive Bisi Olatilo Show of 6/7/09). He would have been sacked for criminal insensitivity and roasted by the press/public, but nothing happened because the government is on an indifference curve! Probably a new dimension should be added next time around: a march to Aso Rock, NASS, NUC & Ministry of Education with tattered academic gowns!
Read also: How 16 ASUU strikes failed to fix universities
That was in 2009. Today, 2022, the same matters are still on the front burner, and another government is treating contentious matters disdainfully. Adamu-Adamu declared the 2009 agreement unsustainable, but they were busy signing agreements, which would eventually become MODs (memoranda of deception), MON (memorandum of nothing-nothing) and MOJ (memorandum of just-call-off-the-strike). The ‘Labour Prefect’, Ngige, declared that the lecturers are just on leave and that the FG has paid N92bn to the ‘lecturers’. Revitalisation funds are paid to universities, and EAA is paid only to Federal ASUUists. But how does N92bn relate to the agreed N1.3trn within 5 years? Jonathan paid N200bn (2013) and PMB, N70bn (2015-2022). Compare and contrast!
The press reported that the government is broke. Yet, the governors’ wives went to Dubai to present a BD cake to Aisha while the House delegation was in Romania to oversee the evacuation of Nigerians from Ukraine. The government committed N200bn to clean ‘dirty fuel’ imported by its friends, while Nigeria donated $1m (probably borrowed) to Talibanised Afghanistan. People also readily forget that about 98 percent of our lecturers and their children are in Nigerian universities. (My family has alumni from UI, ABU, UNILAG, LASU, UNIBEN, UNN, FUTMina and NAU). The Cable released the data on ASUU strikes since 1999 but forgot the number of breached agreements and the number of torturous, fruitless ASUU-government meetings.
As usual, the government has embarked on a flurry of activities to divert attention from its criminal dereliction. It has just formed a white-paper committee on the visitation panels (completed 10 months earlier); a committee to renegotiate an agreement (concluded 8 months ago); a committee on lecturers’ allowances; and another committee on IPPIS and UTAS … all with immediate effect! What happened to all the reports from the previous committees? ASUU has, however, declared that this is not the time for negotiations, and Prof. Osodeke, the Chief ASUUist, declared that we have concluded negotiations with them.’
“Well, that was in 2022, but now, in 2025, we are still discussing a 2009 agreement. How can I explain to my Year 1 students that an agreement signed while they were in liquid form is still in contention?”
So, why should the FG meet with ASUU, sign agreements, set up sterile committees and ‘refer everything to the drawer’? Why should stakeholders go to sleep immediately after ASUU yields to their pleas? How many of those pillorying ASUU will be comfortable today with salaries fixed in 2009? Why do ASUU-in-Government, including Prof. Osinbajo, always turn their back on ASUU? Because it is bad table manners to talk while chopping? Will this changeful government behave differently this time around? Why should an academic general earn a minute fraction of what other Nigerian generals earn? Is it an offence to offer to light other people’s candles? Why should lecturers teach the nation, but the nation cheats the lecturers? As I conclude. The People’s Consortium, headed by the son of man, is proposing that lecturers should establish ‘private clinics’, to which they should divert students for first-class attention and first-class fees.
Read also: ASUU again? No; it’s the government! (2)
Well, that was in 2022, but now, in 2025, we are still discussing a 2009 agreement. How can I explain to my Year 1 students that an agreement signed while they were in liquid form is still in contention? I joined OOU in 2004, and now that I am planning for retirement, is the 2009 agreement still a matter for committees? I hope I have used these points of mine to convince, not to confuse, you that it is the government. And I pray that I will not do a follow-up on this treatise again! Meanwhile, some people who cannot differentiate ASUU and its members say that it serves us right because we usually rig elections for politicians.
However, the Minister of Education has assured that ASUU would never go on strike under his watch. Should I believe him after years of serial infidelity? After all, he denied the existence of the 2009 agreement before his Damascus Road experience! I am waiting and watching while reminding the government that 4 weeks is short. After all, one week has already gone!
Ik Muo, OOU, Ago-Iwoye. 08033026625
