You may have also noticed that ASUU’s demands over the past 10 years has always been about earned allowances, release of fund for the revitalization of ‘public universities’, release of operational license to Nigerian University Employees Pension Company and a few more. It then beats my imagination why lecturers of state varsities would leave the rot in their own institutions to fight for the liberation of the federal universities.
A baffling example is the crisis-ridden Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, LAUTECH, which is now a shadow of its own self. One would thing such university, sitting comfortably at the middle of a huge financial crisis and which has wasted the youthful days of its students would sue for peace when all is done and dust. Instead, ASUU-LAUTECH, returning from a long, boring and not-too-yielding industrial action moved quickly in solidarism to join its national body in another unending wrangle that still has no end in sight. I doubt if even ASUU national body would have blamed ASUU-LAUTECH for opting out of the strike if it did. Thank Goodness angels ministered to these patriotic men and women, after about three years, they returned back to their line of duty last week, but would now be on strike only on Thursdays and Fridays.
I’ve wondered ceaselessly, why students of the better by far UNILORIN and Great Ife who have remained in school taking lectures and exams, rounding up a semester or session may later enjoy better infrastructures if ASUU struggle eventually pays off while 100L students of EKSU, OSU, ABSU and others would return back to their classrooms sitting on the ground to take lectures in the old, dilapidated structures on ground. Isn’t it unfair to these students that their state universities benefit next to nothing?
Many of these state owned university lecturers would return to the crisis ravaging their own schools after the strike and continue to manage it. On the other hand, federal schools continue to fix more air-conditioned systems, Wi-Fi, better libraries and cooler, siren environment while their students pay far less for just so much. Sad but true is many state owned schools don’t rely on government funds any longer including UNIOSUN, TASUED, OOU, etc. Could this then be blind solidarity?
It is indeed unfair for students of state owned universities to pay tuition as high as #150,000, almost the same amount their colleagues pay at Oduduwa and Redeemer’s university, only to be used as bargaining tools to fight for students of UNIBEN whose tuition is absolutely free and can only get better facilities. Therefore, why keep state university students at home?
