When negotiation cannot solve the problem between two parties in conflict, the matter will be prolonged until when one metal bows to another or the third party intervenes.
The above is a crux to describe the ongoing face-off between Federal Government and Lecturers
Recall that the last meeting between the Federal government and the ASUU ended without resolution even though the issues discussed were not disclosed to the public, those who know the action and its interpretative meaning can guess right that, the federal government wish to apply their deceitful method to lure the lecturers while the lecturers are not ready to dance to the drum of their deception again
The fact that, presidency confessed to the general public that the demands of lecturers are valid thereafter imposing such an illegal, harsh,compelling and dictating policy is not a way forward to solve the problem rather the Government should look at another holistic approach that will curb the ongoing strike action that has disrupted the academic activities of many universities and sent many students back to their parents.
If the issue is being critically looked from the origin, one would understand that the travail of ASUU strike does not begin with this administration rather it has become what I term as “chop and leave” food of the past administrations
I stated it in one of my articles that, the problem facing the whole educational sector in Nigeria does not start today and can be traced back to 1980s when the allocated budget allotted to educational sector fell drastically below 30% since then, the recurrent strike action by various sub-sections under the educational sector has kicked-off
Like we all know that ASUU is a sub-organization in the university, there is no ounce of doubt that if the federal government is able to meet their demands now, that will spark-off another fire of strike actions by other sub-sectors under the education as they will all come to realize that the only way to lure government to action is to embark on industrial actions
Recall that, in this same year the Senior Staff Association of the University(SSANU) and Non-Academic Staff Union of the University(NASU) also embarked on strike but their industrial action was not felt by the students as their strike action did not disrupt the academic activities and also the strike action by Nigeria Labour Congress(NLC) was also suspended not called-off
ASUU has realized their power as a determinant of academic activities in Nigeria universities and that their action is felt more than other units in the university, so they use that as a means of shutting down the academic activities to protest for their needs
The problem now is that the federal government is at dilemma of quenching a minor fire to spark-off another which may clamp down other essential aspects
Few days ago, The federal government implemented the policy of “NO WORK NO PAY” on lecturers.
It is clear that even if the government didn’t revoke the policy that cannot put end to this strike as the lecturers have understood the power behind cooperation and ready to face the hardship as they know that the the travail would not last longer because government would soon need the help of masses as the 2019 general election is approaching.
There is no iota of doubt that the lecturers would be able to annul and withstand the policy because most of them are into other businesses and most of them are also working at private universities, so imposing such a policy is just like deferring their money for them which they would later pay it all after the policy makes no impact
The final breakdown of the face-off is that, the lecturers are not ready to dance to another drum of deception and lecturers have stuck the federal government throat at delicate hour, having realized that they will not want to lose the general election and the government has realized that meeting their demands will trigger the moral of other civil servants organization.
The hen is sweating but the hair upon her back conceals it , the both parties are in adiabatic state, hence they have nothing to lose and the strike action will end one day and the lecturers would receive their arrears but the year of graduations of students have been uttered these assert. the fact that “when two elephants are fighting the grasses suffer”
Nurudeen Akewushola is a campus journalist at Usmanu Danfodiyo University and a freelance writer for National Dailies