The crisis in Nigeria’s public universities has dragged on for decades, with no end in sight. Successive governments have promised reforms but delivered little, leaving lecturers and students trapped in a cycle of strikes, dashed hopes and deteriorating standards.
In 2022, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) suspended its eight-month strike, hoping the federal government would seize the chance to address fundamental issues. Three years later, those hopes have all but faded. Salaries remain unpaid in full, facilities crumble, and the system groans under neglect.
For years, critics of ASUU’s strike strategy have urged the union to seek alternatives. However, the union insists that nothing it has achieved has ever come without industrial action. Patience, many lecturers say, has been stretched to its limits.
Last year, ASUU branches across the country voted in favour of resuming the suspended strike. However, the national leadership, cautious and conciliatory, delayed action in what it called a gesture of goodwill to the government. That goodwill, members argue, has been met with silence.
As ASUU’s National Executive Council meets this weekend in Sokoto, lecturers across Nigeria are demanding decisive action. They insist the time for waiting is over. If the government does not respond, union leaders are expected to return from the meeting with a resolution to launch an immediate and indefinite strike. The patience of academics, already battered by years of broken promises, appears to have run out. For many, “enough is enough.”
