Written by: Solanke Abiola, FUNAAB, Abeokuta, Ogun State, +23481356591.
The ongoing industrial action by the Academic Staff Union Of Universities which has shut our campuses for over three months has seen Nigerian students as the ones mostly affected by the crisis. Some of the lecturers teach in private universities and such have resumed there while the students are left languishing at home. Of particular concern to me however is the sacrifice that ASUU is also willing to pay in this crisis.
Whenever there is a dispute as this, there is usually no winner, it is no victor, no vanquished as all the parties involved must sacrifice something to resolve the crisis. Nigerian students are losing valuable months by sitting idle at home, the Federal Government is also being ridiculed in the public that it has allowed the strike to drag this long, my question then is what is ASUU also ready to sacrifice to see that there is a quick resolution of the crisis?
ASUU cannot play the holier than thou character here because it is part of the rot in the education sector. The lecturers extort money from students, molest our ladies, sit on university panels that recommend expulsion of genuine student activists, and do not show commitment to their work. What then are they ready to part with to atone for the pains that their strike action and unprofessionalism have caused Nigerian students?
ASUU is demanding that its salaries for the months they didn’t step into the classrooms be paid.! They want their own salaries yet they don’t care how long their students languish at home.
Are they immune to making sacrifices?
