How ASUU Can Think Out Of The Box
By Haladu Mohammed
Again ASUU is on strike. Again students are at home. Again the blame game has started between them and the government. They may soon be called to the table for another round of negotiations and then agreement that will not be honored by the government. Then they will declare strike again. Type same cycle over and over again. It is time for ASUU to know that strike is no longer a good strategy that will bring the needed change. There is need to think out of the box. I have a suggestion that may help.
Since the argument from ASUU is that the universities are not properly developed by the government, so the need to force government to do so, then we need to come up with what will actually force the government
Whenever there is a strike, students go back home and become additional liability to their parents. The parents feel it. The students feel it. So they ask for resolution. Sadly, however, nobody in the government feel any impact of the strike. Their children are not in those universities, so they don’t come into direct contact with the impact. Their kids are abroad or in private universities.
Some even feel that it is because their children are not in public universities that is why they don’t pay any attention to them. If their children are there, they see and feel the impact of strikes, then they will act. So why can’t ASUU insist the children of all public servants must be in public schools? They can call on the National Assembly to enact a law that will compel all public servants to take their children to public schools. They can go on strike until such a law is enacted.
If they can go on strike for that, all the masses will identify with them. The struggle will become not for ASUU alone. It will become universal. Electorates will demand for that. Government will have no option. They will be forced. Their children will be forced to be with the rest in the “rotten” universities. The ministers and legislators and everyone will eat from the same pot. All will be forced to pay attention to the decay and do something about it, if not for the nation but for himself.
This may be a first step towards bring some structural change.
