Academic Staff Union of Universities

The ASUU was formed in 1978, a successor to the Nigerian Association of University Teachers formed in 1965 and covering academic staff in all of the Federal and State Universities in the country.

The Union was active in struggles against the military regime during the 1980s.[1] In 1988 the union organized a National Strike to obtain fair wages and university autonomy. As a result, the ASUU was proscribed on 7 August 1988 and all its property seized. It was allowed to resume in 1990, but after another strike was again banned on 23 August 1992. However, an agreement was reached on 3 September 1992 that met several of the union's demands including the right of workers to collective bargaining. The ASUU organized further strikes in 1994 and 1996, protesting against the dismissal of staff by the Sani Abacha military regime.[1]

After the return to democracy in 1999 with the Nigerian Fourth Republic, the union continued to be militant in demanding the rights of university workers against opposition by the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo.[1] In July 2002 Dr. Oladipo Fashina, the then national president of the union, petitioned Justice Mustapha Akanbi of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission to investigate the authorities of the University of Ilorin for financial mismanagement and corruption.[2]

In 2007, the ASUU went on strike for three months.[3] In May 2008, it held two one-week "warning strikes" to press a range of demands, including an improved salary scheme and reinstatement of 49 lecturers who were dismissed many years earlier.[4] In June 2009, ASUU ordered its members in federal and state universities nationwide to proceed on an indefinite strike over disagreements with the Federal Government on an agreement it reached with the union about two and a half years earlier.[5] After three months of strikes, in October 2009, the union and other staff unions signed a memorandum of understanding with the government and called off the industrial action.[6] On 1 July 2013, ASUU embarked on another strike which lasted 5 months and 15 days was called off on 16 December 2013.[7] Claims made by ASUU in regards to the strike are centered largely on funding and revitalization of Nigerian public universities as well as a certain earned allowance which it claims to be in an arrears of 92 billion naira. Some Nigerian students said that the strike was a curse to them while others said it was a blessing before the ASUU strike was called.[1]

While the association continues to claim that it is involved in a struggle for Nigerian tertiary education and Nigerian students by extension, many Nigerians perceive the supposed struggle, marked by incessant strike actions, to be malicious and self serving. This image has not been helped by ASUU, who still cannot communicate effectively with the Nigerian populace without sounding arrogant and condescending.