csrreporters 
FG must avert another ASUU strike
Nigeria’s public university system stands once again on the precipice of a nationwide shutdown, and the warning signals are neither abrupt nor unjustified. For fifteen years since the now-infamous 2009 FGN–ASUU Agreement university lecturers have watched the value of their salaries erode under unrelenting inflation, while successive administrations either ignored the agreement outright or implemented it in token fragments that insult the spirit of negotiation. The consequences have been predictable: Collapsing morale, declining academic output, a mass exodus of scholars, and a strike calendar that has become an international embarrassment.
Instead of addressing these deeply rooted structural challenges, past administrations, under Presidents Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari, and now under the current government, chose the politically attractive but economically reckless path of establishing more universities, even as the real value of the N1.3 trillion revitalisation fund agreed upon in 2009 dwindled to insignificance.
Between 2009 and 2022 alone, Nigerian students lost over three academic sessions to strikes, with some industrial actions stretching eight to nine months. No serious nation treats its knowledge sector with this level of irresponsibility.
President Bola Tinubu, during the 2023 campaign, pledged that ASUU would not embark on strike under his watch. In a rare gesture of goodwill, lecturers granted an unofficial honeymoon period, trusting that the administration would address critical issues such as earned academic allowances, university revitalisation funding, and long-overdue salary adjustments. That patience, evidently, has run its course.
ASUU’s latest ultimatum, threatening an indefinite strike from Friday signals not just frustration but a loss of confidence. The union insists that the one-month window it granted after an earlier warning strike has expired without meaningful government action. The message is unmistakable: like its predecessors, this administration appears indifferent to the plight of the academic community.
The deterioration of lecturers’ welfare is a national disgrace. A full professor in Nigeria earns between N500,000 and N700,000 monthly, barely enough to survive in today’s inflationary economy while their South African counterpart earns the equivalent of over N7 million monthly. Many Nigerian academics resort to moonlighting as Uber drivers, small-scale traders, tutors, and consultants simply to keep their households afloat. When the nation’s intellectual class is reduced to hustling for survival, research collapses, innovation dies, and national development stalls.
The government has repeatedly showcased the Nigerian Education Loan Fund as a major education-sector achievement. Yet the question is inescapable: of what use is a student loan when the universities those students attend are perpetually closed? Education financing is pointless when the system itself is perpetually unstable.
Meanwhile, the rot in existing universities deepens. Lecture theatres are dilapidated; laboratories lack the most basic reagents; libraries stock outdated materials; and hostels remain in deplorable condition. Yet, this same government continues to announce new universities with great fanfare, creating additional liabilities on a budget that is already insufficient. If the Federal Government cannot fund the universities it currently owns, what justification is there for establishing new ones? It is fiscal irresponsibility dressed up as progress.
Nigeria’s global education standing paints an even bleaker picture. The country allocates less than 7 per cent of its annual federal budget to education far below UNESCO’s recommended benchmark of 15 to 20 per cent. South Africa spends roughly 19 per cent of its national budget on education; Ghana allocates between 18 and 20 per cent. The First Republic understood the value of education: the Western Region under Obafemi Awolowo once allocated as high as 41 per cent of its budget to the sector. Today, Nigeria ranks 191 out of 208 countries on the World Top 20 Global Education Index placing behind DR Congo, Niger, Chad, and Ethiopia. The country also hosts the world’s second-largest population of out-of-school children, estimated at 20 million. Every ASUU strike only magnifies this tragedy.
The societal consequences are dire. Lives are disrupted. Young women, stranded by prolonged school closures, become vulnerable to exploitation. Young men drift towards crime or menial labour, and many never return to the classroom. Parents lose money, years are wasted, and a generation’s future is compromised. The Nigerian university system, once the pride of West Africa, now repels the very students who once sought it out.
The exodus of academic talent continues at an alarming pace. Ghana, Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa, and even Botswana now aggressively recruit Nigerian lecturers fleeing inadequate pay and deteriorating working conditions. The result is a hollowed-out system incapable of mentoring the next generation of scholars.
This government cannot claim poverty while simultaneously approving billions for presidential jets, luxury vehicles for legislators, hajj subsidies, and dubious constituency projects. The administration has demonstrated repeatedly that funds appear whenever political will exists. Education deserves the same urgency indeed, far greater urgency because it is the backbone of national development and the engine of future prosperity.
A dedicated intervention fund for university revitalisation and lecturer welfare is not an act of charity; it is a strategic investment in Nigeria’s survival. The Federal Government must immediately honour the 2009 agreement, clear the backlog of earned academic allowances, and present a credible, time-bound roadmap for implementing the revitalisation fund.
President Tinubu must remember the promise he made to Nigerian students, their parents, and the academic community. Another ASUU strike will not merely be a blemish on his administration, it will be a failure of leadership at the most fundamental level. History will record, with unflattering clarity, that a government which found money for luxury and political indulgences could not find it for classrooms, laboratories, libraries, and the scholars who form the intellectual foundation of the nation.
Mr President, the time for dithering is over. Avert this strike. Restore dignity to our universities. Nigeria’s future depends on it.