This is a plaintive cry from a broken heart, a concerned parent and a patriot, to the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU): Please, call off this strike; return to work for our children suffer. Our children, your students and children too, faint in despair. They are unnerved by the uncertainty of today and tomorrow. For no fault of theirs, they suffer the emotional torture of forced idleness. They bear the pang of an avoidable impasse.

And this is not to apportion blame to anybody. This is the cry of a parent on behalf of other parents and guardians. They have grown weary and weak. Hope fades to zilch, to nothingness. These parents cannot confront the Federal Government. And they cannot dare ASUU, either. They come, on bended knees, with a heartfelt plea: Please, ASUU, please. For the sake of our children, for the sake of tomorrow. Please, ASUU, please.

ASUU has been on strike since February 14, this year. That’s over six months now. ASUU strike is not news. Almost a routine. But it is special. It is special because ASUU, a body of lecturers in Nigerian public universities, ought to be treated as a special body. It is like toying with the medical profession and allowing doctors go on strike. No responsible government should allow that.

Formed in 1978. It was a successor to the Nigerian Association of University Teachers (NAUT) formed in 1965.  By that time, there were few universities. From then, ASUU has evolved into a monumental movement, an intellectual watering hole and pressure group. Advocacy beyond education caught its fancy in the military days. It stood on the side of the people, demanding for a return to democracy and for good governance. In plain language, ASUU has not always been self-serving. It has been selfless in its agitations.

ASUU is not an assembly of armed men. It is an association of intellectuals, men and women who have over the years developed their brains, liberated their mind through scholarship and exorcised the spirit of ignorance among them. We ought to respect such body. But do we? We don’t. Because they are not armed with Ak-47 and bayonets, they deploy the only tool at their disposal: Strike.

Like a nagging, bitchy woman, ASUU downs tool at the drop of a hat. The record is incredible, hard to beat. Its first strike was in 1980 to protest the sacking of six lecturers at the University of Lagos. Ever since, ASUU strike has been reading like a per-second billing meter.

Consider this: In 21 years, between 1992 and 2013, ASUU has downed tools over 23 times for various reasons but largely for their welfare and the wellbeing of education in the country. This translates to one strike per year. Huge turnover? Very huge. And it gets worse when you consider the fact that each strike triggers negative ripple effects. Students are shortchanged; parents despair, associated businesses on campuses suffer. A student, for instance, rounds off a four-year programme in six years. This wrecks the human mind; kills ingenuity and frustrates innovativeness.

But we must never crucify ASUU. To do so would be unjust. ASUU has never gone on strike on the ground of frivolity or vainglory. Each strike is driven by altruism, by a prompting for the larger good of the education sector. The latest strike is about funding for Nigerian universities.

Truth be told, Nigerian public universities are under-funded hence under-equipped. The ergonomics are scary both for teaching and learning. It is only in Nigerian public universities that a student will graduate with a top grade without owning a laptop; without access to information communication technology in the 21^st century. Take a trip to some state-owned universities. Gosh! Your bile will run over. Infrastructure is non-existent. What passes for classrooms are no better than pigpens. This is why there’s a sense of justification for every ASUU strike.

However, ASUU must realise that two wrongs don’t make a right. While it’s difficult not to sympathise with ASUU, it’s also hard to understand why the body of university lecturers is maintaining a hard stance on the strike. Even more alarming is the position of ASUU that government must pay their members for the six months they were on strike. This is a clear negation of relevant labour laws including the Trade Disputes Act and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) ‘no work, no pay’ rule. Even the Holy Writ, the Bible, says ‘he who must not work, let him not eat.’ It’s unjust for ASUU to suggest payment for members for not working as a pre-condition for re-opening of universities. This is a plea to ASUU: Do not allow the arrogance and sometimes obvious negligence of the Nigerian government, past and present, to rob you of your humanity and legendary good faith. It’s instructive that the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Education and Associated Institutions, NASU, and Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU, have taken the path of empathy to suspend their strike. ASUU should show good faith and follow suit in spite of the hardline position of the Federal Government. The role of ASUU in the development of Nigeria is not disputable. Members of ASUU have from the beginning moulded engineers, successful business people, lawyers, journalists, medical professionals, teachers, men and women who have continued to contribute to the national development basket.

Nigerians appreciate ASUU. Nigerians love ASUU. It’s with such measure of love for country that ASUU should call off the strike. The strike was necessary and justifiable, but in the present circumstance, it’s expedient that ASUU shows good faith, not to the Government, but to Nigerians in general.

Granted, ASUU struggle is not for ASUU alone. It’s about the general good of the people, about improved funding for education and research. It’s to draw government’s attention to infrastructure deficiency in the universities. The university is a place for intensive research. Most of mankind’s greatest innovations and theories were wrought within the four walls of universities: Google search engine was invented at Stanford University by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in their student days. The same Stanford was also the birth place of Yahoo by Jerry Yang and David Filo who were then graduate students in 1994. Other innovations like the television, Internet, computers, oil refining, GPS, Plasma screen, LCD screen, solar power, telescope, insulin as treatment for diabetes, vaccines, bone marrow transplant among a legion of others, are products of university research. These innovations are possible because Western universities are properly funded with huge grants invested in the area of research. The results show most evidently in the number of Western patents owned by universities and their students/staff. This is what ASUU is fighting for: Proper funding of our public universities just so they can transform to nurseries for innovation.

Indeed, ASUU strike is for all Nigerians. But the same Nigerians are pleading with ASUU to return to their duty posts. Nigerians are saying: Please, ASUU, Please! Calling off the strike is the best gift ASUU can give to parents and guardians, and the most exemplary act of patriotism in this season of anomie.

First published in Sunday Sun