Some University students have taken to social media to express their displeasure at the extension of the ongoing industrial action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
The National Chairman of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, after the body’s emergency National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja on Monday, announced that the strike would be extended to August.
This was obviously met with displeasure as students disclosed losses ASUU’s decision was causing them; ranging from scholarship opportunities to job offers.
Some reactions extracted from the Union’s twitter handle @ASUU_NGN were compiled below.
@tech_aidee wrote: “This isn’t bearable anymore. I lost a scholarship sponsor over the weekend because of this strike.
A session fees would have been cleared by them, but I lost it. I don give up”.
@YusufOgunsanya wrote: “You guys are not doing good at all. You keep putting the student education career at stake,I will say it again, in this country, there is age barrier in the labour market, A student who graduate at 25years of age upward might not see a job in the labour market”.
@EmmanuelJoyce16: “Like why are you guys like this! Is this the way, had the government responded to your demands? You think they care about your demands, isn’t there another approach to this, all the time strike, strike, but people keep writing exams to get admitted, why not stop jamb and other entrance exams, you can imagine getting limited opportunities because of this strike sh*t, I’ve had a very nice job offer in Lagos, but I can’t go because I’ve not obtained my cert even got offers for winter scholarship, but with the way things are going I wouldn’t meet up”.
@evans_utin wrote: “Ending this strike when you’ve not achieved the purpose for it will hurt more people than extending the strike. In my opinion, I want this to be the last time #ASUU would go on a strike in this country”.
@Splendorlaw19 wrote: “FG is not releasing one naira to ASUU
The money available now it’s for election next year 😒😒😒😒
Allow innocent students to graduate”.
@OKAFORADA24 wrote: “This can lead Nigerian students to depression or sucide. @ASUU_NGN Please consider you stand oooo”
The Union had embarked on a one-month strike on February 14 over the failure of the Nigerian government to honour the various agreements reached with them in 2019.
Some of their demands include the release of revitalisation funds for universities, renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement, release of earned allowances for university lecturers, and deployment of the UTAS payment platform for the payment of salaries and allowances of university lecturers.
Following the expiration of the initial four-week warning strike, the union had gone ahead to declare additional eight weeks of industrial action, saying that it was giving the government more time to attend to its needs.
