It’s the New Year and all Nigeria public universities have resumed full academic activities after a protracted strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) that lasted for 5 months.

While the strike was on, many accused the union of selfishness – not having the interest of the university educational system at heart, being inconsiderate and at a time likened its stance and activities as wanting to subvert the government. After all the politics, name calling, threats, counter threats, negotiations and meetings, government, ASUU and the Labour Union reached an actionable understanding on the way forward and called of the strike.

The gains for our universities in developing infrastructure, improving research, capacity and delivery are enormous but I am in serious doubt of the average Nigerian student’s readiness to benefit from these gains in terms of getting real value for the new funding, and getting equipped for the next decade globally competitive knowledge driven economy. The signs are there, unfortunately, the National Association of Nigerian Universities (NANS) failed in its duty to articulate what should be the interest of the Nigerian students in the crisis and take a strong position that will benefit the students it claims to represent their interest.

As our universities reopen, we as students owe ourselves a duty to demand:

Our lecturers come to class when they should and teach what the curriculum provides;
We should be allowed to make maximum use of our laboratories, libraries and other academic resources provided for our learning;
An end to forceful purchase of handouts and textbooks – compilations that has no knowledge that benefits us or addresses Nigeria’s current socio-economic needs;
An end to all forms of abuse and harassment of students and the system;
Equitable and resourceful use of resources by the university management;

In this game it is the students – you and I that will always lose, we are the ones that will graduate ill-equipped for the labour market, we are the ones that will be unemployed for years, go back to school for our masters, and doctorate – lectured by same lecturers who are part of our problem. Worse of, we slave here, save for a costly US, UK – Europe, or Asia education, get ‘educated’ and come back, yet without a good job. It really pains. Let me remind us that our university lecturers have absolutely nothing to lose, they stand to benefit more. Haven’t they been paid their arrears while on strike? What were we paid for staying at home with our parents and losing 5months of our lives? If we do not take care we will be paid back with the same attitude of not teaching us, 19th and 20th Century information on 15 page handouts and copied text books that we will be forced to buy to pass exams we were taught nothing of what will be set in them.

An additional 200-220Billion annually to public universities for 6 years is a lot of money – since it hasn’t been coming, yet a stipend when compared to what our universities need to get to acceptable standards before it can compete globally. As students ourselves, we should shun all forms of indiscipline, malpractices and crimes that we are usually accused of and must be seen to have changed and ready to learn and benefit from this new process.

A stitch in time saves nine. A word is enough for the wise, let’s save our future.

Submission by Akachukwu Nnaemeka Okafor