The Academic Staff Union of Universities declared a comprehensive and total strike four months ago in order to compel the Federal Government to act on a variety of issues that have lingered between both parties for years.
Since the strike was declared in February, there has been little progress in the deliberations.
Instead, meetings continue to end in deadlocks; banquets, fanfare, party conventions, primary elections, and political campaigns are the order of the day, while the crumbling education sector continues to receive sparse attention.
Some of these students have expressed their frustration with the Federal Government’s lackadaisical attitude to their plight.
A final year student of Bayero University, Kano, Zainab Olayinka, revealed that she has “locked away the student” in herself in order to avoid feeling depressed.
“I have been coping by not letting the thought of it cross my mind too often. It is like I have just locked away the student in me just so I don’t slip into depression,” she said.
Zainab has also taken to interning in an organisation that keeps her connected to her school studies. Additionally, she has ventured into ghostwriting in order to keep herself busy.
“The strike keeps making you alter several life plans. While I know plans are not static, the strike mostly puts me in a bad place in terms of missing out on opportunities just because there is a particular requirement and it is connected with my academic certificate.
It makes you grow older, and then when you are finally out of school they tell you, you need certain years of experience after delaying so much. It is so unfair,” she said.
Chinedu Chisom Uzochukwu a 300 Level student of University of Nigeria, Nsukka, said he has “not been coping” well with the protracted strike which has also left him drained.
“It’s been hell in a way,” he said. “I mean, aside from missing school life, it’s been draining. I don’t even know if I’ve been coping mentally.”
Like Zainab, Chinedu has also started his interning with a law firm after boredom got the best of him while staying at home.
Speaking on the effects of the strike as regards his future plans, Chinedu confessed that while the consequences are not pressing in the short term, he feels a diversion of his interests in education to entrepreneurship is imminent.
An anonymous respondent who is currently in their penultimate year at Bayero University, Kano, agonised over the fact that their school ID card projects that they should be graduating this year.
