ASUU-FG crisis and Nigerian students

Clarifications need to be made and solidly established on the full meaning of ASUU and what the body represents. ASUU stands for Academic Staff Union of Universities and not Association of Students’ Union of Universities and as such it is established mainly to fight for the interest of university lecturers and not of students.

A pressure group has been described as a group of individuals sharing common interests, who come together on the basis of shared opinions and bonded interest in order to influence governmental policies and decisions as they affect their group specific interest.

Just like the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) fights to promote the interest of doctors and surgeons across the country and not for their patients, and just like the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) struggles to protect the interest of lawyers, advocates and solicitors in the country and not of their clients, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) also exists fundamentally to protect the common interests of all affiliated university lecturers. Is it not surprisingly unintelligible to read contradictory comments and unguided statements on different social media handles about the ‘selfishness’ of ASUU as mostly perpetuated by Nigerian students?

Having established the fact that ASUU is a pressure group and seeks to protect the interest of its members, why then should we call it a selfish body when it is not created for the interest of the Nigerian students in the first instance. Many students only read blogs on social media without embarking on background checks to authenticate the news being disseminated on the disagreement between ASUU and the federal government. They say ASUU is only fighting for its pocket and, I ask, should it fight for students’ pockets when our interests vary? Apart from the obscure

IPPIS saga many believed is the cause of the crisis between ASUU and FG, how many are fully informed of the 2009 Agreement, 2012 Universities NEEDS Assessment and the 2017 Negotiations between FG and ASUU before the ensuing 2020 ASUU indefinite strike?

The question is, what do the National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN), National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), National Association of University Students ( NAUS) among other students/ youth associations represent when we keep expecting ASUU to fight for or represent our interest.

Should we then blame ASUU for demanding its entitlements or question our government for not meeting its end of the contract between it and ASUU?

My question is, who’s more selfish, ASUU? FG? or Nigerian students?

Alamu Azeez, Lagos State ilyasazeezalamu@gmail.com