COLLEGE OF EDUCATION TEACHERS DECLARE 4-WEEK STRIKE

ASUU: Varsity lecturers have embarked on strike for 1,404 days since 1999

The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has used a total of 1,404 days to go on strike since the inception of this democratic dispensation in 1999.

This figure means that the universities’ lecturers have used three years and 10 months to boycott classrooms as one major means of pressing home their demands from the federal and state governments.

ASUU, an umbrella body of the teaching staff of federal and state government-owned universities in Nigeria is currently on strike since February 14, 2022 as they demand certain conditions and emoluments to improve their teaching profession.

The striking lecturers’ demands include funding for the revitalization of public universities, Earned Academic Allowances, University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) and promotion arrears.

 

ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, said in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, in Abuja, criticised the federal government for the strike and its apathetic body language towards tertiary education.

275 days in 2020

 

Reacting to the menace on its Twitter on Tuesday, data consulting firm, Statisense revealed that lecturers have used 1,404 days to register their grievances through strikes, with 275 days in 2020 being the longest.

Statisense gave a reference to Monogbe, B.O and Monogbe, T.G, the authors of “ASUU Strike and Nigerian Educational System: An Empirical Investigation of the Nigerian Tertiary Institution,” as it revealed the figures.

 

In 1999 and 2001, ASUU strike occurred 90 days each culminating into 180 days, and it was another straight 180 days in 2003 again.

In 2007, lecturers boycotted classrooms for another 90 days. The next strike action lasted 120 days in 2009 and 180 days in both 2010 and 2011.

There were no lectures for 165 days in 2013 due to strike action and another one happened again in 2018, which lasted 94 days. The latest strike is ongoing and has persisted for 120 days.

Vanguard reported this week that the leadership of ASUU rejected a crowdfunding platform initiated to terminate the current strike by lecturers of public universities in the country.

The crowdfunding platform initiated by acclaimed philanthropist and owner of Human Rights Radio, Ahmed Isah, was aimed at raising money for the lecturers’ union with a view to ending the strike that has jeopardized academic activities in the nation’s public varsities.

Isah had invited the ASUU President, Osodeke, to his station to intimate them of his efforts aimed at resolving the age-long crisis between ASUU and the federal government, but Osodeke blatantly declined the idea.