ASUU pulled a Beyonce; in a sad, inverted way.

They said ‘World, Stop!’ then nine months later, cavalierly said ‘Carry on…but conditionally’.

After an excruciatingly long nine-month-old strike, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Wednesday said it has “conditionally” suspended the strike action it embarked on in March. The suspension is said to take effect from 12:01 a.m. Thursday. This would be the longest strike in the history of the country since 1999.

Unfortunately, the delay immediately spells an extra year for most students in public universities and has mostly stagnated their lives for the past few months.

A piece in the Vanguard stated that the reason ASUU called off its strike was that it ‘dawned on the leadership that the poor economic situation in the country would not allow the government to meet up with some of its demands.’

Speaking at a briefing at the union’s secretariat in Abuja on Wednesday, the union’s president, Biodun Ogunyemi, said the decision was reached after its national executive council met on Tuesday. He also noted that the strike’s suspension was a sequel to the understanding the union had with the federal government, which ASUU NEC agreed upon.

He said the agreements reached are to be met within January and March next year and that failure to meet the agreements would trigger fresh industrial actions.

In short, they wasted people’s time, and eventually, barely anything changed or was achieved. And even now, one can’t confidently say this is the end of all strikes in the nearest future.