In the narrow corridors of a hostel in Agege, Lagos, Funke stirs at 4:59 a.m. She hushes the generator’s hum, glances at her phone: “Lecture starts 8 am.” But “lecture” here is a promise. And promises, she’s discovered, break more often than sunshine during harmattan.
Her brother, final‑year engineering, has been home for three weeks. No lectures. No exams. Just gossip among students that tomorrow might be the day professors show up again.
His lecture notes—once crisp—are now curled at edges from too many nights of candlelight and waiting.
Three thousand kilometres away in Katsina, Emmanuel is filling application forms for a scholarship in Canada. He debates if he should sleep or stay up more hours to scan oxidised photocopies of his transcripts.
Each missing signature costs “courier money”—money pulled from his mother’s savings.
Meanwhile, his peers at home wander empty lecture halls, whispering that “if you can’t trust the strike calendar, trust foreign semesters”.
This isn’t fiction. This is the reality Nigeria’s public university students face — where the ASUU strike has become not just an event, but a dragnet capturing futures, tripping dreams, and forcing thousands to believe that to study abroad is no longer option—it’s survival.
The Strike That Broke Something
On October 13, 2025, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) declared a two‑week warning strike.
Key demands: finalisation and implementation of the 2009 FGN‑ASUU agreement; payment of withheld salaries and earned allowances; revitalisation of university infrastructure; and justice for lecturers allegedly victimised in certain institutions.
The response from the Federal Government: stern threats of invoking “no work, no pay”.
Ministers insisted offers had been made (including ₦50 billion for earned allowances and ₦150 billion in the 2025 budget for university revitalisation).
But ASUU rejected what it called half measures and vague promises.
Then came solidarity. The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) called an emergency meeting with allied unions: NASU, SSANU, ASUP, ASURI, and more, warning that public education was being undermined by government’s failure to honour collective agreements.
Why “Study Abroad” Pulls Harder Than Home These Days
Funke and Emmanuel are not anomalies. They are part of a swelling crowd for whom studying abroad is no longer luxury—it’s the safer bet.
1. Unpredictability eats dreams
Each time ASUU calls a strike, semesters are derailed. Graduation dates pushed forward, then pulled back. Students miss application deadlines, internships, exchange programme windows. Sometimes, a whole academic year is lost.
Funke’s brother once missed a scholarship interview abroad because his transcript from the Nigerian university was delayed. Weeks turned into months. The slot went. The dream evaporated.
2. Broken promises, broken trust
The 2009 ASUU‑FGN agreement has been cited for over a decade.
In recent months, the government promised payments (Earned Academic Allowances, backlog of salaries), budgeting for infrastructure.
Yet these pledges often arrive late, or in installments that fall short. ASUU maintains many of its demands remain unmet.
When a lecturer goes unpaid, morale drops. When lecture halls leak, labs are ghostly relics, internet is a luxury, foreign programmes look shiny by comparison.
3. Trends don’t lie
Between 2017 and 2022, nearly 99,985 Nigerian students left to study in UK universities.
A report found almost 90% of young Nigerians (respondents in a survey) prefer to study abroad.
Only 709 foreign students in total were admitted into Nigerian public universities, polytechnics, etc., from 2017‑2023. That’s across the whole country.
These numbers tell a story: people are voting with their feet when the system fails.
4. Brain Drain in Flesh and Bone
It’s not just students leaving. Lecturers, researchers, administrative staff alike see greener pastures. Poor welfare, delayed promotions, infrastructural decay, meagre salaries—these paint a bleak future. Many say: abroad, I can at least plan. Here, I plan and then pray.
A statistic: 76% of Nigerian students in the UK stayed through postgraduate or other visas within three years, up from much lower years before.
That suggests once people get there, many don’t want to come back—or can’t find reasons to return.
But Why “Kill”? What Does That Mean, Really?
Not literal murder. But desperation:
Families selling land, households dipping into food money, borrowing at high interest, going into debt just to raise foreign tuition, application fees, visa costs—all because domestic education is unpredictable.
Students applying to less ideal foreign programmes because “somewhere they don’t strike as much”, or “at least their academic calendar is promised”.
Some even exaggerate or borrow documents, rush applications, skip courses here because they assume “by the time I finish here, I’ll be too old”.
Older siblings with degrees delayed by strikes miss job cut‑offs.
Age limits for jobs and programmes block them. The anxiety is visceral.
What Must Happen to Pull the Dream Back Home
Because if nothing changes, Funke’s generation—and Emmanuel’s—will all be packing.
1. Honour the Agreements
The 2009 ASUU‑FGN agreement, promotion arrears, earned allowances: lawfully negotiated. They must be fulfilled with deadlines that are transparent.
2. Robust Infrastructure & Learning Environment
Power, internet, functioning labs, safe classrooms. When learning can happen reliably here, the allure of abroad dims.
3. Predictable Academic Calendars
Strikes should become rare exceptions—not the norm. Authorities, unions, ministers need binding frameworks so that students don’t spend more years than their course requires.
4. Fair Lecturer Welfare
Better salaries, prompt payment, clear promotion paths, less “victimisation”, more investment in research and academic development.
5. Scholarship & Partnership Models
Government and universities should build more exchange programmes, joint degrees, and opportunities abroad that still allow students to return or apply the know‑how domestically.
6. Student Voice & Accountability
Universities should involve students in key decisions. Transparency in funding, budget use, infrastructure plans. Let students see they are being invested in—not just talked about.
Between Home And Abroad, Whose Country Are We Building?
Back in Agege, Funke flips through her phone gallery. Photos of houses still under construction; lecture halls with peeling paint; labs that look like relics. She wonders what home promises really mean.
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In Katsina, Emmanuel scans an email: accepted. He wept—not just for joy, but for resignation. Because to be accepted abroad is to leave a broken promise behind.
If Nigeria wants to keep its young minds, its dreamers, its future, it must do more than issue statements. It must act.
Because when you force people to “kill” for education elsewhere, you lose far more than universities—you lose the heart of the nation.
