Gentility is not stupidity
FG wants to talk ASUU out of a planned nationwide strike
Good morning, Big Brains. Today’s not a good day to be a Nigerian student, and I’m sorry to everyone about to get caught up in this mess. The person who’s doing this country is a very unrepentant witch.
Word count: ~ 1,100
Reading time ~ 6 mins
Let’s get into today’s edition:
FG wants to talk ASUU out of a planned nationwide strike.
World bank has confirmed that poverty is rising under Tinubu’s leadership
The Big Deal
FG wants to talk ASUU out of a planned nationwide strike
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is everything Nigerians think an “understanding girlfriend” is — patient, kind, and easily taken for granted. But that’s about to change because starting on Sunday, October 12, the union will declare a nationwide academic strike that will show the federal government that gentility has never had anything to do with stupidity.
On Wednesday, October 8, the federal government, through the Minister of Education, Maruf Olatunji Alausa, made it clear that it doesn’t want any of that smoke. The government is now begging the union to suspend its planned strike, insisting that President Bola Tinubu had given “clear directives” that everything humanly possible must be done to keep universities open. According to Alausa, the government is not just talking this time; it’s working overtime to fix long-standing issues that have kept Nigeria’s tertiary education system in the trenches for over 10 years.
Alausa also wants ASUU to know that President Tinubu has been “working several hours behind the scenes” to ensure that this round of negotiations doesn’t end in yet another strike cycle.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like the union is buying what FG is selling. It has already started mobilising its members ahead of the proposed warning strike once its 14-day ultimatum expires this Sunday. Whether the federal government’s last-minute efforts will be enough to stop this lowkey justifiable crash out from ASUU remains to be seen.
Why is this a big deal?
Nigeria’s education sector is declining badly right in front of our eyes. Earlier this week, we explained how almost 32 million students in primary and secondary schools are at risk of being academically disadvantaged due to the declining availability of teachers. Today, we’re talking about over 2 million university students.
The Tinubu-led administration might be acting brand new but this academic strike conversation has been happening for a minute now. Actually, it feels like a bad Deja vu because this is the exact news we wrote about exactly one year ago.
Around this time in 2024, ASUU issued a similar 14-day ultimatum due to the government’s refusal to meet its financial demands. According to the union, some of its members have died due to financial struggles. The ones that are still alive are either in debt or leaving public universities to lecture at private schools.
ASUU President, Emmanuel Osodeke, also added that this administration had hardly been committed to its demands and criticised the delay tactics. It’s been a year since then and ASUU has found itself in the same position yet again. This recurrence alone disproves Alausa’s claim of the president losing sleep over this matter.
Although the issues ASUU has been complaining about dates back to 2009, the present administration still owes it to Nigerian students to come to an agreement that will keep both lecturers and students happy. According to the president’s wife, Nigeria’s dropout rate has risen to a concerning level. There’s no better time for the Tinubu-led administration to put its money where its mouth is and show actual workings that benefit millions of students in the country.
World Bank has confirmed that poverty is rising under Tinubu’s leadership
President Tinubu and friends swear that life is all roses and flowers under his leadership, but the World Bank’s latest poverty report begs to differ.
According to the World Bank Group, about 139 million Nigerians are now living in poverty despite the president’s reforms.
Mathew Verghis, the World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, explained the report’s findings on Wednesday, October 8. He said the country’s poverty rate started increasing in 2019 and, disturbingly, has refused to come down even after the government’s economic reforms.
The World Bank admits that there is in fact economic growth— revenues are rising, debt indicators are improving, the foreign exchange market is less chaotic, reserves are rising, and inflation is beginning to ease. But Verghis admits that despite these stabilisation gains, many Nigerians are still struggling.
Samer Matta, the World Bank’s Lead Economist for Nigeria, added that federation revenues have impressively increased over the past eight months. But added that there are “huge deductions” going to revenue-collecting agencies.
It also shows that about 70% of the federal government’s spending still goes to wages and salaries, leaving little room for actual capital projects that might improve lives. And that begs the question, will the average Nigerian ever feel the positive effects of Tinubu’s reforms?
But it’s not all bad news. The World Bank’s report, titled “From Policy to People: Bringing the Reform Gains Home,” paints a picture of an optimistic future. GDP growth could increase to 4.4 percent by 2027, inflation might fall to 15.8 percent, and debt could stay stable at around 40 percent of GDP — if everything goes according to plan (and that’s a very big if).
Until then, the government’s “reform success story” sounds more like a message for the Aso Rock audience, not the regular Nigerian.
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