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Nigeria: Students Want Solution to Strike
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Leadership (Abuja)
2 May 2008
Posted to the web 2 May 2008
University of Jos (UNIJOS) students have called on President Umaru Yar'Adua to find an amicable solution to the incessant strike by Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
President of the Students Union Government (SUG) of the university, Mr Sam Tokz, made the call on Wednesday in Jos in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
He said: "President Yar'Adua and Vice President Goodluck Jonathan had been lecturers and they knew the plight of lecturers.
"This lingering crisis between ASUU and the Federal Government is unhealthy for our educational system.
Our universities end up producing half-baked graduates and academic calendars are unnecessarily prolonged," he said.
Tokz said that the on-going warning strike was the last before an indefinite strike would be embarked on, saying the Federal Government should give the lecturers a sense of belonging.
He lamented that students, who were innocent of the issues in contention, were being made to suffer, adding
that both parties were being unjust to the students.
He explained that aside the national strike, staff of UNIJOS had also had their internal strikes which affected the students' lectures.
He described the strike as unfair, "when we are going to start examinations next month. It will surely destabilise us".
On whether the on-going strike would affect the schedule of the students' examinations, the university's public relations officer, Malam Abdullahi Abdullahi, said "the university has no comment on the issue."
None of the ASUU executive members was available for comment on the issue as they were said to be having a meeting to further review the issue.
No academic activity took place in the university since Monday when the five-day warning strike commenced.
Meanwhile, the Academic Staff Union of the University of Abuja is yet to join the nation-wide warning strike by the university lecturers.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the lecturers were going about their academic works.
They were seen marking scripts, computing continuous assessment results and other statutory functions.
The warning strike commenced on Monday.
A cross section of the lecturers said on condition of anonymity, that it was unfair to avoid marking the scripts or attending to students with only few days to examination. A lecturer at the Department of History said that "We have less than a week to the examination and the deadline given to us to round up the continuous assessment work was over."
A source close to the university management said that there was a directive to the academic staff to finish all the continuous assessment exercises before examination.
"The management always avoid anything that will distort its academic calendar," the source said.
Some students interviewed commended the maturity and understanding of the lecturers.
Janet Pius , a 200 level student said, it was not the rights time for the lecturers to embark on any strike.
ASUU chairman in the University, Dr Abu Malam denied that the union ignored the strike.
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"Our compliance to the warning strike is total, to best of my knowledge no staff is working presently," Malam said. (NAN).
Incessant strikes have become part of the School curriculum in Nigeria to keep students longer in school to learn more at the expense of parents, false because nothing has shown that it is true. But a plausible theory that has been espoused for this education deterrent is two fold; a. Equating Strikes like the Malthusian theory on economics - Influence on population effort that result in deliberate prevention of pregnancy and the act of war to reduce human population. B. Incessant Strikes - Is a deliberate formula designed by the Nigerian political and educational leaders to slow down the rate... [Read Full Text]
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