When the Candle Is Left to Burn Itself Out: Why ASUU Has Declared a Two-Week Warning Strike

By R. M. Adisa
Department of Mass Communication 
University of Ilorin, Nigeria

There is a Yoruba proverb that says, “The child who says his mother will not sleep will also not sleep.” That is the tragedy we are living in today, when those who nurture the nation’s future are themselves denied rest, respect, and reward.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has declared a two-week warning strike beginning 13th October 2025. It is not a strike of joy or arrogance, but one of pain, frustration, and desperation. For two long years, ASUU has engaged, pleaded, and waited upon promises that never saw the light of fulfilment. Their patience has been mistaken for weakness, their silence for surrender.

While President Tinubu jets out of the country, and the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, reacts with hasty threats of “no work, no pay,” the true story runs deeper. For sixteen years, Nigerian academics have been on the same meagre salaries, salaries that can no longer feed a family, let alone sustain the dignity of a scholar. These are men and women who shape minds, challenge ignorance, and build the intellectual backbone of a nation. How can one light the path for others when one’s own flame is dying?
For sixteen years, Nigerian academics have been on the same meagre salaries, salaries that can no longer feed a family, let alone sustain the dignity of a scholar. These are men and women who shape minds, challenge ignorance, and build the intellectual backbone of a nation. How can one light the path for others when one’s own flame is dying?
Promises of “robust teaching allowances” are tossed about like crumbs to the hungry, yet no one can say what has been approved, when, or for whom. Instead, committees are inaugurated and re, inaugurated, reports written and shelved, and hopes kindled only to be extinguished again. “A promise is like a drum,” as the elders say, “it sounds loud until you open it.”
It is no secret that poverty has become the tool of control in this land. When a scholar is forced to worry about rent instead of research, or food instead of teaching, the entire society suffers. A nation that refuses to value its teachers has already chosen ignorance over progress.
To our dear students, ASUU’s struggle is not against you but for you. It is for a future where your lecturers can teach with passion, not hunger; where knowledge is not priced out of reach; where public universities regain their dignity. You have every right to demand your education, but remember, the lecturers and the students are not two elephants fighting. We are all the grass beneath the trampling feet of the political class.
ASUU’s warning strike is a cry from the heart, a plea that this nation must not silence. For when the candle that lights the room burns itself to ash, darkness is everyone’s inheritance.