The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) Calabar zone, has said Nigerians, especially university students, should prepare for an indefinite strike by the union if the Federal Government failed to reach an agreement with ASUU within the four-week rollover of the union’s strike declared on Monday 1August, 2022.
The Zonal Coordinator, ASUU Calabar Zone, Dr. Aniekan Brown disclosed this in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
ASUU has been on strike since 14 February, 2022.
Dr. Brown faulted Nigerians who attacked ASUU over the strike, saying they are coming from a place of ignorance about the union’s demands which led to the strike. However, he commended other Nigerians who support ASUU on the strike.
Dr. Brown who is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Uyo (UNIUYO) stated that if the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, failed to get President Muhammadu Buhari to accept the renegotiated 2009 agreement, then ASUU would have no option but to declared an indefinite strike.
His words: “Of course, we shut down indefinitely, then there is no school in Nigeria. We are saying that having come this far, it is a no-going-back situation.
“The whole basis of the re-negotiation is to reposition lecturers for optimal delivery for students, for the betterment of Nigeria. Now the point is this, if it has taken government almost six months and they are yet to agree on what to do, you can now understand that if we had not declared a strike we wouldn’t have left a scratch.
“We declared an initial four weeks, made it eight weeks, extended it to twelve weeks and government doesn’t care, so it took us series of struggles to come this far. That is why I said the bottom line is if government does not respond positively, then we remain here, we shut down completely. Five months without salary is a big sacrifice, but it is not enough to stop us. So I will like to tell people that for our tomorrow, we sacrifice today”
Dr. Brown continued: “Essentially when we opted for this struggle, we had known that it wasn’t supposed to be a case of popularity contest. I salute the support we’ve had over the months. It was a well-thought-out decision to embark on a strike for a better future for all of us.
“But my view is that anybody who will take offence with the union, anybody who is blaming ASUU today does that out of ignorance. So I will appeal to them to take it easy and understand with us.
“What ASUU is doing is a selfless struggle. For those who are blaming ASUU, our challenge is to educate them, because if they had known why we are on strike, they will not blame ASUU. That also tells you the average level of education in our country. We’ve held press conferences, we’ve had appearances on television, radio programmes at various stations and levels. We even interpret in vernacular, and you still find people not following”.
In a veiled dig at President Buhari and Adamu, Dr. Brown stressed that “people running government don’t know what to do to address the challenge in the education system.”
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