Why ASUU strike poses serious threat to students

A student took to her Twitter handle, OBO_lexies, to announce that with the declaration of strike by ASUU, she will resort to hookup (prostitution). In her words: “Once ASUU strike, na to start hookup.”

The tweet attracted over 400 comments at the last check before this report. Many criticised her and others expressed interest in patronising her.

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She, however, later posted another tweet to explain that she used the post to get the attention of people to market her products, weight gain supplements.

But her earlier tweet on hookup is an expression of fear being raised by many about students, many of who hit the wrong way when school is not in session.

An educationist, Michael Sule, said the strike has become a national embarrassment, but the government had failed to see that.

He said students are at the receiving end every time there is a strike because they do not only get delayed but the quality of learning is affected as a course that is supposed to take two months will now get only three to four weeks and the students will sit for the examination with little knowledge of the course.

“Worse of it is what the students will be doing during the strike. Many will definitely join bad gangs – robbers, yahoo boys or drop out to face business – and the girls may go into prostitution or get pregnant or marry and that ends their education dream,” he said.

A teacher who wants to be addressed as Okezie, expressed fear over the fresh strike, saying he is scared that many students would use the idle time to join the quick money activities (rituals and yahoo yahoo) that are trending in the country currently.

He said people go to school to better their lives so if they can make quick money and live the big boys’ life many would most probably not think of going back to school.

He said government should have addressed the issues with ASUU long ago, as for it to have persisted, meant some groups or individuals do not want it to end to the detriment of the students, their parents and society.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Monday, declared a four weeks warning strike over the failure of the federal government to honour the agreement they had about four years ago.

The union and the government have been having a rift with the academia demanding that government meets certain conditions which, according to them, will address the challenges faced by the Nigerian university system.

While the strike has become the tool to draw the attention of government, both parties forget that the students, who are in no way responsible for the conditions in the system, bore the brunt in different measures.

Some students who spoke to Daily Trust expressed disappointment, saying it is for no fault of theirs but that they are the ones being punished.

A student of Nasarawa State University Keffi, Stephen Catherine, wondered what exactly is stopping the government from honouring agreements with ASUU?

She said: “They have been meeting for a very long time but still the ASUU issue has not settled. It’s really affecting us, the students, and it’s not fair on us.

For Jesse Isa Miski, a 400 level student of public administration, the strike is not supposed to hold.

“My point is that the students are not to blame. They have paid for the service through the payment of their school fees. So ASUU should find an alternative means of getting the government to do the needful,” Jesse said.

He said students are made to spend too much time in school due to strike actions and when they finally graduate, age is not on their side and employees reject them over age for job positions.

“Strike is not a way forward in our tertiary institutions because the ones affected most are not supposed to be the ones affected,” he said.

Another student, Armstrong Mailafia, however, welcomed the strike action saying, “I want the ASUU to go on an indefinite strike so that I can use my house rent to be productive and earn some money by the end of the strike.”

A parent, Mrs Eucharia Azubuike, said it is unfortunate that the issue between ASUU and government has lingered for so long and there appears to be no solution anywhere soon.

“In other countries, this would have been sorted out long ago because most nations do not play with the education of their populace but Nigeria is a country where evil thrives because some few individuals stand to benefit,” she said.

While expressing fear that many students may derail when they stayed idle for long, Mrs Azubuike said it’s the poor masses that have children in public schools and cannot afford private schools or those abroad that are suffering.

Reacting, a former ASUU chairman at University of Abuja, Prof Ben Ugheoke, insisted that the strike is in the interest of students, saying government is gradually taking their hands off funding of university education.

“University administrators in a bid to catch up with costs of running the universities, introduce sundry fees/charges, bringing so many burdens on students and parents,” he said.

He said fees have been raised and unless governments, who are the proprietors of public universities, are forced to do what they should do in line with the provisions of chapter two of the Constitution, students and parents will be made to pay prohibitive fees/ charges.

“For instance, students’ charges in the University of Abuja have already risen to about N160,000 Naira in some programmes. Students are already dropping out of universities and unless parents and students join the ASUU to maintain a sustained struggle against this trend occasioned by governments’ apathy towards funding of education, many more students will drop out of school and the society will become more unsafe for good living.”

Prof Ugheoke, insisted that but for the strikes, the lot of the public universities’ undergraduates could have been worse.

“Before the 2013 strike, the decrepit state of the existing infrastructure in public universities had reached unimaginable heights. It was so terrible that hostels were complete slums and ghettos, classroom facilities were grossly inadequate without requisite furniture and more,” he said.

“These scenarios are no exaggerations and truly, they could have been worse today, but for the strikes of ASUU; a union that through sacrifices, relegated welfare of its members to the background and focused its efforts on how to salvage the public universities from total collapse,” he said.