Why ASSU Strike Might Last for Months!

The Academic Staff Union Of Universities (ASUU) has commenced an indefinite strike and we might be looking at another long-term strike!

It is no longer a rumour as Officials of the Union have confirmed to news agencies that the strike is total and indefinite. Quoting the chairman of ASSU at Obafemi Awolowo University, Adeola Egbedokun "the strike is total and indefinite until the union’s needs are met"

You hear that doubting OAU students? You're joining too!

An official of the union, Ben Ugwoke from the University of Abuja also confirmed the news yesterday to Premium Times

According to ASSU, the strike is to dissent the poor subsidizing of Nigerian colleges and asserted arrangement by the government to build understudies charges and present an instruction bank.

Let's go back in time to 2013 shall we? Remember that 8 months strike? Here's what the ASSU president said then

“We are embarking on indefinite strike nation wide because the Federal Government reneged in the Memorandum of Understanding MoU  signed with ASUU in 2009 to pay lecturers their earn allowance.”

See any similarity?

Late yesterday Sunday the 4th 2018, Led by its National President, Biodun Ogunyemi, ASUU declared the strike at the end of its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting

Weeks before the strike was announced, Mr Ogunyemi explained in an interview with PREMIUM TIMES why the lecturers were opposed to an education bank.

“The Nigerian government experimented with it for 7-8 years; it failed.

So government had to set up a ministerial committee  at the federal executive council to go and wind up the national education banking plan in 2001/2002, something they started in 1993. So for seven to eight years, the experiment failed. Why did it fail? Government was not living up to its financial obligations towards the bank. There was widespread corruption, capacity of students to pay back the loan was not there, because there were no jobs and there are still no jobs.

“So you can imagine what will become of a bank that the loan equipment is not coming or is very low, the rate of payment is low or not coming. And we told them all of these but they went ahead to come up with the idea that well, we have calculated the cost of what we need to train an undergraduate and they have estimated that it will be N1 million that they will borrow from the bank. These students will borrow 1 million, but when they borrow, 70 per cent of it will be paid directly into the universities and 30 per cent will be given to students to maintain themselves. We smelt a rat. Why? Why are you insisting that students who do not have the capacity to pay should borrow and that this time around the money will not be given to them will be paid directly to universities irrespective of whether private or public,” the don said.

So What do you think? Are we in for Another Marathon?