According to varsity alumni, the ASUU strike will put Nigeria in severe peril.

Ibekimi Oriamaja Reports

The Academic Staff Union of Universities’ (ASUU) protracted strike could have severe effects on the country, alumni organisations of Nigerian universities have warned.

Alumni associations asked the Federal Government and the lecturers on strike to settle their disputes in a letter sent yesterday.

“The under-listed alumni organisations of Nigerian universities have expressed worry over the ongoing conflict between the ASUU and the Federal Government as well as the country’s universities’ continuous closure,” they stated.

“In a statement from the presidents of the university alumni groups, the concerned associations declared that no nation hoping to enter the Promised Land and even to join the comity of enlightened

States would play around with schooling.

“They said that, on a worldwide scale, education is pushed by the government, with lecturers, parents, students, and other stakeholders following closely behind. In this regard, the groups requested the Federal Government to swiftly implement a system to comprehensively address the worries and requests of the striking teachers and other university employees.

The groups observed that these are some of the effects of adolescents not being critically engaged and drew the government’s attention to the country’s repeated issues, including the spate of terrorism, banditry, kidnappings, money rituals, prostitution, and other social vices.

Dr. John Momoh, President (Globally), University of Lagos (UNILAG) Alumni Association; Prof. Ahmed Tijani Mora, National Chairman, Conference of Alumni; and others signed the letter.

Associations of Universities in Nigeria

Professor Elsie Adewoye, President of the University of Ibadan (UI) Alumni; Professor Yakubu Aboki Ochefu, President of the University of Calabar Alumni; Pastor Nuhu Sani,

Pastor Ule Williams Glad, president of the University of Port Harcourt alumni, and the president of the University of Jos alumni.

Additionally, President Muhammadu Buhari has been beseeched by the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) to use his fatherly influence to end the ongoing ASUU strike.

Usman Barambu, the recently elected NANS president, spoke to media in Abuja and termed the ongoing conflict between ASUU and the Federal Government, which resulted in the shutdown of universities for around seven months, as worrying.

Barambu remarked that the ongoing strikes have had a severe influence on Nigerian students’ futures and the academic calendar of public universities.

He claimed that because of ongoing strikes, a four-year education now lasts six years or more.

Additionally, the Federal Government and ASUU have been encouraged to halt the strike that has paralyzed the universities for more than six months by the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON).

Following the association’s 32nd National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Lokoja, the capital of Kogi State, ALGON made the request in a communiqué issued by its national officers, Umaru Boroli, Willi Okoliegwo, and Babatunde Emilola-Gazal.

In order to achieve an inclusive growth for national development, “we urge the Federal Government to swiftly resolve and end the ongoing strike,” it stated.

Additionally, the ASUU branch at the University of Ilorin (Unilorin) has pleaded with well-meaning Nigerian leaders to get involved in the ongoing labor conflict between the union and the Federal Government.

The call was made Tuesday in Ilorin, the capital of Kwara State, by Prof. Moyosore Ajao, the union’s chairperson for the Unilorin chapter.

Additionally, he urged respectable organizations to get involved in the protracted conflict.

Because they are also parents and guardians with children and wards studying in the country’s ivory towers, union members, like other well-meaning patriots, are equally unhappy with the strike and its effects, Ajao added.

But ASUU seems resolute in its strike.

The union claimed yesterday that all of the chapters who initiated the protracted strike were still in place and steadfast in their pursuit of obtaining from the Federal Government the funding necessary for public institutions to thrive and compete on a global scale.

It maintained that professors at Nigeria’s public colleges had been sustaining the organizations with their blood.

This was said yesterday in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State, by Professor Akinwole, the chairman of the union’s branch at the University of Ibadan (UI).

Nigerians were warned by the union head to ignore the rumor that the Federal Government has conceded to ASUU’s seven demands.

He claimed that before beginning its strike this year, ASUU provided the government a 14-month warning.

Before ASUU announced the strike on February 14, 2022, Akinwole claimed that the Nigerian Inter-Religious Council’s efforts in 2021 had failed to produce any positive effects.

We held off on calling this strike for 14 months, from December 2020 to February 2022, he claimed. I’m saying 14 months of engagements followed by 14 months of notice. When we were about to proclaim the strike in 2021, the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council stepped in.

“We gave them a month, but nothing happened. Before they can be honored, heroes pass away. However, our union will survive. We won’t pass away. We will live to see this battle to its conclusion.