Jega to New ASUU President: Start by Examining Your Team’s Heads

Prominent journalist and public affairs commentator, Mahmud Jega, has reacted to the election of Professor Chris Piwuna, a Consultant Psychiatrist, as the new President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), urging him to begin his leadership by “examining the heads” of his union’s top executives.

Jega made the remarks in a post on his verified Facebook page following the conclusion of ASUU’s 23rd National Delegates Congress in Benin City over the weekend, where Professor Piwuna was elected to succeed Professor Emmanuel Osodeke.

Rather than embarking on further industrial actions, which have affected Nigeria’s public universities for decades, Jega proposed a symbolic – and sarcastic – first step for the new ASUU leader.

“Piwuna’s first task is clear enough. It is not to begin another round of endless negotiations with the Federal Government or even to call a total, nation-wide and indefinite strike over Earned Academic Allowances, University Autonomy, Revitalisation of Universities or Removal of Academic Staff from IPIS. No,” he stated.

In his usual satirical style, Jega pointed out the psychological toll and national consequences of ASUU’s repeated strike actions and called for introspection within the union’s leadership.

“He should instead order all members of ASUU’s National Executive Committee to immediately report to his clinic, for their heads to be thoroughly examined,” Jega wrote.

Jega criticized the recurring pattern of ASUU strikes, often suspended without resolution, which he said has led to long-term disruptions in academic calendars and affected millions of Nigerian students and their families.

“It is important to examine the heads of those who take strike decisions nearly every year, some of the strikes lasting nearly a year, keeping a million students at home, thoroughly disrupting academic calendars, leaving parents gnashing their teeth, fueling the sending of rich kids to foreign schools, only for the strikes to be ‘suspended’ but never called off.”

Capping off his critique with a metaphor, Jega said “Let us see academic gowns lined up outside Professor Piwuna’s psychiatric clinic.”

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