ASUU Activism And Development In The Standard Of Tertiary Education In Nigeria – Dr. Azowue Emmanuel – SIXT-MEDIA LANE
ASUU ACTIVISM AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE STANDARD OF TERTIARY EDUCATION IN NIGERIA
(Random Shots: XCIV)
Dr. Azowue O. Emmanuel
(Pen of the gods)
Beyond a cursory analysis of labour conflicts, a more in-depth critical evaluation of the Academic Staff Union of Universities’ activities is necessary to resolve the inherent paradox in the story of Nigerian higher education. There has been a vicious cycle of falling educational standards and the union’s portrayal of itself as the principal protector of higher education against decades of state neglect. The indefinite strike, the union’s principal tactic, has contributed to this decline. At its core, Nigeria’s educational dilemma stems from this basic contradiction; understanding how a movement advocating for quality education can also erode it calls for a more sophisticated investigation.
The basic rationale for the militant activism of ASUU stems from the fact that the Nigerian government has consistently broken promises and neglected its citizens throughout history, a pattern that exposes more systemic problems in Nigeria’s political economy. Despite UNESCO’s recommendation of fifteen to twenty-six percent for education spending, university funding has long been an afterthought under successive administrations, with allocations to education remaining stagnant at five to eight percent. Many political economists see the systematic defunding of public goods and the reimagining of education as a commodity rather than a social right as a structural consequence of the neoliberal economic restructuring that started in the 1980s. This chronic underfunding is therefore more than just a question of fiscal policy or competing priorities.
Despite lecturers’ and the public’s expectations for future discussions, the 2009 ASUU-FGN deal, which promised revitalisation funds and enhanced welfare, went mostly unfulfilled for more than a decade, becoming a symbol of the government’s bad faith. Sociologists can see the ASUU strikes as a collective action by educators to assert their moral authority against governments that see university education mainly through the prism of electoral politics and patronage networks, and as a necessary withdrawal of legitimacy from an authority that has shown itself to be fundamentally untrustworthy. Consequently, the union’s activism is about more than just negotiating wages; it’s a fight against the privatisation of education and the loss of the public university’s role as a place for independent thinking, critical analysis, and national progress. Unfortunately, the tool used to fight this worthy cause has unintended consequences for the people it is trying to help.
But the main tool of this activity, the repeated and sometimes protracted strike, has harmed the system it claims to be protecting in ways that go well beyond the short-term interruption of school schedules. The consequences will affect millions of children in Nigeria in ways that are both immediate and long-lasting, changing the nature of their education and the results they achieve. Unfortunately, academic schedules are often thrown into disarray, making four-year degree programs six- or seven-year nightmares that subject students to constant anxiety and doubt. Educational psychologists call this kind of disruption a “culture of improvisation.” As a result, students learn in short bursts with little depth, research projects, particularly those involving the hard sciences that cannot be stopped and started, are abandoned halfway through.
As a result, the next generation graduates later, unprepared and deeply disappointed with the system that was meant to prepare them for the future. The human toll is high but never reflected in official data; students experience burnout from strikes, anxiety disorders, despair, and a generalised feeling of hopelessness as they see themselves as powerless pawns in an ongoing power struggle between their government and their professors. The typical progression of life—graduation, employment, marriage, independence—is indefinitely halted by forces beyond their control, trapping young people who entered university with dreams of intellectual growth and professional preparation. This contradiction necessitates immediate introspection on the part of union officials, government officials, and all parties involved in the educational sector; it is both shocking and troubling that a movement advocating for better education is directly to blame for the decline in educational standards experienced by millions of young Nigerians.
Also, the nation’s most precious intellectual capital is leaving the country at an alarming rate due to the cycle of strikes, which has hastened the collapse of Nigerian universities as globally competitive institutions. Nigerians have come to call the widespread exodus of the country’s top academics to safer and more lucrative countries like the United States, Europe, and the Gulf states as “the Japa syndrome” due to the persistent lack of support and funding for higher education in the nation. As senior scholars and promising early-career academics leave, the quality of teaching, research output, and postgraduate supervision becomes even worse. As a result, the remaining staff is overworked and demoralised, and they struggle to maintain standards with insufficient resources and support. This downward spiral is extremely difficult to stop. In an uncomfortable moment of candour, one professor pointed out that long strikes cause brain drain, which in turn causes more strikes. This perpetuates the problem because brilliant professors want to get out of a system that continuously interrupts their career advancement, limits their research productivity, and undermines their professional potential. Families in Nigeria spend billions of dollars a year on international education, which impacts local institutions and the economy. This outflow is a one-way flow of foreign exchange that benefits other countries at the expense of Nigeria, which loses out on both current and future intellectual capital. The harm to Nigeria’s reputation is substantial and will persist for a long time; it will discourage international cooperation, lower the profile of Nigerian research in worldwide academic discussions, and make foreign employers view degrees from Nigeria as less credible.
The signature of a new, historic agreement between the Federal Government and ASUU in January 2026 seemed to signify a crucial turning point in this decades-long conflict, possibly signalling a strategy shift from confrontation to collaborative execution. Perhaps marking a turning point in the tumultuous history of government-union relations, this new agreement provides strikingly detailed answers to many of the union’s fundamental requests. Some important provisions include a salary increase of 40% for academic staff, a new allowance of 1.8 million naira per annum for professors, and an allowance to consolidate academic tools to help fund research activities like publishing in international journals and attending conferences.
Moving beyond the contentious and unfulfilled 2009 agreement, the parties to the accord are framing it as a structural reset, with the goal of establishing a time-bound, reviewable framework for university funding, institutional autonomy, and governance. Allowances are now formally attached to specific responsibilities, such as postgraduate supervision and research production, which directly correlates to academic productivity, marking the first official system of its kind in decades. The agreement addresses a long-standing deficit that has crippled Nigerian scholarship and left academics struggling to conduct meaningful research with obsolete equipment and minimal institutional support. Perhaps most significantly, it includes provisions for a National Research Council Bill that would allocate at least one percent of Gross Domestic Product to research funding. However, ASUU President Chris Piwuna warned that the union will be watchful in monitoring compliance and acknowledged the government’s past lack of seriousness in execution, expressing what he called cautious optimism even as the deal was inked. Decades of experience fully warrant this reluctance, and the real measure of the agreement’s importance will not be in its signing but in its steadfast execution in the years to come.
Internal governance issues within the university system exacerbate the challenges caused by low resources; ASUU has raised severe warnings about this, in addition to the immediate question of government finance and implementation fidelity. The union has long been an outspoken critic of the way universities handle their finances, particularly the increasing prevalence of the “consultant syndrome”—the practice of paying outside firms to do work that might be done in-house more efficiently. Appointments to governing councils are also subject to criticism for being too politicised, with political allegiance taking precedence over academic credentials and institutional experience. As a result, these councils are ill-equipped to oversee institutions effectively. Institutional stability, strategic planning, and the meritocratic principles that ought to govern academic appointments are undermined when universities function for long periods without substantive leadership, as Piwuna has emphasised in her warnings against the culture of prolonged acting vice-chancellorship. Universities in Nigeria need to address underlying problems with institutional culture, accountability systems, and the professionalisation of university administration if they want to recover their previous glory, and these internal governance failures are a part of that problem.
Considering the educational crisis in Nigeria via a comparative lens brings the issue to light even more acutely, showing that the root of the problem is not a dearth of national resources but rather a basic failure of political will to make education a priority. The discrepancy between education funding in Nigeria (between 5-8 percent of the national budget) and its peers (around 24 percent in Ghana and 19 percent in South Africa) defies explanation by differences in national wealth or competing developmental priorities. On the contrary, it indicates a political and cultural reluctance to invest in education for the long haul, favouring instead the distribution of patronage and short-term political gains. Laboratory equipment is lacking, libraries cannot afford journal subscriptions, classrooms are overcrowded and in bad shape, and students graduate without the practical skills and knowledge that employers demand—all because of this chronic underfunding, which has real consequences that go beyond the immediate complaints of lecturers. Not an arbitrary aim, but the investment level that educational economists have established is necessary for a functioning educational system that can drive national growth is fifteen to twenty-six percent of the national budget for education, according to UNESCO. Consistently falling short of this standard is a national decision that will have far-reaching effects for Nigeria’s future.
Analysing the strategic decisions made by ASUU raises the question of whether the heavy dependence on complete shutdowns has turned into a problematic ritual of resistance, even though it was necessary in response to state corruption, and has now outlived its tactical use. Even if the striking weapon can get the government’s attention and start a public conversation, it has limits that become worse with each use. The union risks losing the public backing that provides it moral credibility with each extended closure, which disproportionately affects students and parents who are already struggling to cope with the disruptions to their education. The activism it aims to uphold is undermined by the monotony and weariness brought about by the cycle of strike, negotiation, agreement, non-implementation, and strike again. The union needs to rethink its strategies if it wants to end this destructive cycle. It could try work-to-rule campaigns, which disrupt administrative functions but keep teaching and research going, form coalitions with other groups to reform education, including student groups, parent groups, and civil society organisations, and set up transparent, independently verifiable metrics to measure how well the government is delivering on its promises. Rather than a sign of a loss of will, this shift in strategy reflects an activist movement’s development into an understanding of the multifaceted nature of the fight and the necessity of a toolbox of nuanced strategies rather than a rigid one.
Moving forward, activism must shift to a new phase that prioritises collaborative implementation, open monitoring, and making sure that the given money really benefit labs, libraries, and classrooms. The 2025 pact lays the groundwork for this fresh strategy, but plans don’t amount to much without constant effort and close monitoring. ASUU must change its role from that of an adversary to that of an ally in the effort to rebuild education, all the while preserving the autonomy and critical stance that have enabled it to keep the government to account. There can be no good-faith engagement if the administration continues its past pattern of promising but never delivering. This is more than just a negotiation strategy; it is a fundamental breach of national trust. No longer can students and the general public sit on their hands while an endless debate determines their educational futures; they must take an active role in demanding high-quality education. The only way for Nigeria’s universities to stop being places of industrial strife and institutional decline and start being places of real intellectual renewal and national growth that meet the needs and dreams of the country now and in the future is for a multi-stakeholder strategy to be implemented. Resolving the paradox of ASUU’s activism—that its essential defence of education has unintentionally contributed to educational decline—requires a fundamental rethinking of the union’s relationship with the state, the state’s adherence to its promises, and the collaborative efforts of all stakeholders in order to construct a university system befitting Nigeria’s potential.
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