The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has expressed mounting frustration over what it describes as the government’s sluggish response to longstanding demands, stating that lecturers have exercised “enough patience.”
Speaking on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Wednesday, ASUU President Christopher Piwuna emphasised that the union has remained committed to dialogue while urging the government to act decisively.
“We’ve been on this for such a long time, and we have, in our view, always demonstrated patience, understanding, and have adopted dialogue to try to address these issues,” Piwuna said .
Reflecting on public perception, he added:
“Since democracy started in 1999 to now, people are quick to say that ASUU has been on strike and schools have been closed, and you wonder what the government thinks about these actions,” he said .
Highlighting the persistence of the union’s efforts, Piwuna noted that the engagement with successive education ministers had yet to yield results:
“When this government came into power two and a half years or so ago, we had engaged them. This is the second Minister of Education since the advent of this administration; we engaged Prof. Tahir Mamman; we have engaged the current minister, Dr. Tunji Alausa, over these issues,” he said .
The ASUU president did not mince words about the government’s pace of response:
“And it appears as if the machines of the government work extremely slowly, and we have had that over and over again,” he said .
ASUU emphasised that despite this, lecturers have kept universities open, far exceeding public expectations:
“But we think that we have demonstrated enough patience; we’ve kept the schools open. And let me just make this point: the government has tried to keep the schools open,” he added .
