*ASUU vs FG: The coming of another industrial unrest due government’s poverty of sincerity*
By Abdelghaffar Amoka
07/10/2025
In September 2023, there was a referendum from the ASUU branches nationwide to declare a strike. FG in October 2023 hurriedly put together the Yayale Ahmed Renegotiation Committee for the renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU-FG agreement. ASUU NEC decided not to implement the referendum to give the committee a chance. The renegotiation job was concluded by the committee in December 2023 and the report was submitted to the government. No action was taken on the draft agreement report between the committee and ASUU.
For a year ASUU waited for communication from the government without any. Meanwhile, on the 29th May 2025, the government celebrated 2 years of no ASUU strike and assured Nigerians of an end to ASUU strike. The minister of education was going around bragging that the president had instructed them to ensure there is no ASUU strike again. He said the reason for the no-strike was the continuous engagement with ASUU. Engagements that have yielded no significant results. Meanwhile, a professor has been taking the same salary of about ₦500,000 since 2009. They pretend that’s alright. The tactic is to keep ASUU in the talking time for 4 years.
After waiting for one year since the Renegotiation committee was inaugurated without any meaningful outcome, the ASUU branches in another nationwide referendum directed the ASUU NEC to declare a strike. The branches said they ain’t interested in any talk again while dying in silence. A 14-day ultimatum was given, and it is now five days to a warning strike.
However, after reading the ASUU Strike Bulletin of 5th October 2025 from ASUU president, reminding the government that the 14-day ultimatum to the looming warning strike is halfway gone, the government today has announced the reconstitution of Yayale Ahmed’s negotiation committee to negotiate with ASUU, a year after it was first inaugurated for negotiations. I am still finding it difficult to understand what they mean. They must be thinking we are dumb and they are the smart ones. They see that move as a smart move to say we are still talking. Well, ASUU members are done with the talk. We are not interested in an endless talk.
To the public, ASUU deliberately gave the government 2 years and 4 months to act on the crisis in our public university system. That was enough time to explore all possible avenues to avert any form of strike. But they were rather celebrating 2 years of no strike instead of properly utilising the time to solve the problems and ASUU has exhausted all the non-strike solutions.
To students and parents, it is within our right to protest the ill treatment of academics and the university system. You don’t treat your intellectuals like a piece of trash and expect the nation to progress. It is also within your right to show your displeasure over the strike. Instead of staying at home and raining insults on ASUU and professors, the best way to express your displeasure is through protests just like ASUU.
Either the students should mobilise their parents or the parents should mobilise their kids who are university students for a nationwide peaceful protest. That should quickly bring the stakeholders to a roundtable within a short time to talk and agree on a solution.
Hold the government responsible as we count down to the beginning of another industrial unrest due to the government’s lack of sincerity on our university system.
A nation without a sound education system is doomed. May our Nigeria and its education system succeed!