After almost six months at home, ASUU has added 4 more weeks to its ongoing industrial action. The problem is not the fact that Nigerian students have been at home for 6 months but rather the negotiations continue to move back and forth with no clear resolution in sight.
It’s either ASUU is deliberately being wicked with its demands or the Federal Government is adamantly intent on rendering the university system in Nigeria prostrate. Whichever way, the biggest losers in this ego-tripping war are the hapless and helpless Nigerian students whose higher education is further imperiled.
In the meantime, I hope ASUU understands that the no-work-no-pay rule still stands. It would be unjust to make the students suffer at home for 6 months while they (lecturers) smile at the bank with full payments and allowances.
For most of the students, their house rents have been running since the beginning of the year, their precious time wasted, exposing them to life-threatening hazards, and for some of them, the opportunity to participate in the NYSC scheme lost forever.
If a price must be paid for the betterment of education in Nigeria, everyone must be involved and affected equally, not the students alone.
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