Nigeria: How CSOs Reacted to Buhari’s ASUU Call

Some civil society organisations (CSOs) in Nigeria have called on the country’s government to meet the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

University lecturers in Nigeria have been on strike for five months with no end in sight.

President Muhammadu Buhari recently called on the lecturers to call off the strike, saying ‘enough is enough’.

ASUU’s demands include implementation of the 2020 Memorandum of Action (MoA) on funding for revitalisation of public universities, renegotiation of the 2009 federal government/ASUU agreement and the deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS).

‘I hope that the institutions we have like ASUU will sympathise with the country and the people. There is nothing wrong with showing the government and leadership that you do not like what they are doing but enough is enough’, he said in Katsina State.

‘Don’t hurt the next generation for goodness sake. So those of you who have friends that are teachers and influential, please persuade them to go back to the classes so that our children can resume their educational pursuit’.

Reacting to the president’s comments, Team Lead at Eduplana, Oriyomi Ogunwale, told Development Diaries that Buhari was essentially ‘passing the buck’ rather than taking responsibility as the country’s leader.

‘He speaks as if he is not the president. He speaks as if he is an ordinary citizen’, Ogunwale said.

‘It shows the government is on autopilot and does not have its affairs all together because ASUU has been on strike for more than 140 days and the president does not deem it fit to say these are the issues, these are what we are addressing, these are the results we have gotten so far’.

Ogunwale also said the prolonged strike is making most Nigerian students disillusioned about education. He also noted that it increases the rate of crime.

‘It affects them in such a way that they do not take university education seriously anymore. You can imagine the average undergraduate who is trying to focus on their studies who also has colleagues who are into cybercrime and now has been at home unproductive for the past four months’, he added.

Also speaking to Development Diaries, Programme Lead at Enough is Enough (EiE), Chukwuemeka Onyebuchi, said the right to education is a basic human right and it is long overdue for the federal government to resolve the impasse with the union.

‘When government pays attention to ASUU and responds to their demand or at least generate workable strategies, actions that will drive the needed and demanded solutions, ASUU does not need to be told to call off the strike. They will see, they will experience and the strike will be called off’, Onyebuchi noted.

‘For those who work in the sector, they have been denied the right, capacity and access to earn income. It does have both socio-economic and psychological impact on individuals, families and households that depend on the education system to earn some income, not just the learners’.

Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) also faulted Buhari’s statement and called on the president to resign to minimise the damage his ‘crass incompetence and gross dereliction of duty would cost the country if he stayed on till May 29th 2023′.

HURIWA, in a statement, added, ‘The administration bears the largest chunk of the blame for totally abandoning public tertiary institutions because the children of the president, governors, senators, ministers and heads of government agencies are all schooling in foreign educational institutions’.

The tendency of students who have lost interest in education due to the incessant strikes to move into crime-related activities such as cybercrime is high and this is why President Buhari needs to show leadership and acquiesce to ASUU’s demands rather than pleading with citizens to convince the lecturers to jettison their action.

Photo source: University of Lagos

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