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_By Zubair Abdurra’uf Idris_
At first glance, the headline screaming “200 senior lecturers, including professors, abandon Kaduna State University over poor pay and welfare” was calibrated for panic. It was designed to make Kaduna believe its flagship state university had been hollowed out overnight, and to suggest that years of investment were being undone in a single press conference.
The facts, however, refuse to dance to that script.
The facts do not support the hysteria. Kaduna State University is not on life support. The campuses at Kafanchan and Kaduna are alive with activity. Lectures hold. Examinations are being written. Postgraduate admissions and convocations are proceeding on schedule. There is no shutdown, no mass resignation letters on file, and no evidence of institutional collapse.
According to records from the office of the Vice Chancellor, between four and five senior lecturers recently exited the institution. They did not “flee” hardship. They accepted appointments at the newly established Federal University of Applied Sciences, Kachia — a development that is itself a product of the renewed federal attention to Kaduna’s education corridor.
Academic mobility is not a crisis. It is a global norm. Professors move for research grants, proximity to home, and career progression. To inflate four or five departures into “200” is not journalism. It is arithmetic in service of agenda.
So where did “200” come from? It was not counted. It was conjured. Drama, not data.
To understand the present, we must recall the immediate past. Under the El-Rufai administration, KASU lecturers and non-academic staff were subjected to a punitive policy: salaries and allowances were withheld for months because they joined the national ASUU strike. That action did more damage to morale than any headline ever could.
Governor Uba Sani’s administration chose a different path — the path of reconciliation and investment.
– All outstanding salaries and arrears owed to KASU lecturers and supporting staff were fully paid.
– The draconian tuition hike imposed by the previous government was reviewed downward by up to 30-50% in many programs, returning thousands of Kaduna students to class who had been priced out.
– Capital interventions in infrastructure, laboratories, and staff welfare are ongoing across KASU campuses.
That is not the footprint of a government that neglects its university. It is the footprint of a government rebuilding, not ruining.
ASUU-KASU’s central grievance is the non-domestication of the FG-ASUU agreement. But this charge does not survive scrutiny. The truth is simple and verifiable: _no state-owned university in Nigeria has fully domesticated that specific federal agreement._ To single out KASU in a press conference is therefore to aim, not to argue. It is politics wearing academic regalia.
If the issue were truly about national policy, the press conference would have been held in Abuja, not Kaduna. The choice of venue tells you everything about the intent.
The politics behind the podium. Beyond welfare, this is a battle over narrative. Who gets to define Kaduna’s recovery?
Certain aggrieved political interests, still smarting from the 2023 transition, have found in ASUU-KASU a convenient megaphone. Their goal is not to improve conditions at KASU. Their goal is to drown out a government that paid debts, restored access, and chose healing over hostility.
It bears repeating: you do not set fire to the house that paid your arrears, cut your students’ fees, and reopened the doors of opportunity.
KASU stands, and will stand taller. Let it be stated clearly: Kaduna State University stands. The storm gathering around it is not academic. It is manufactured.
Governor Uba Sani’s administration remains committed to three things: funding education adequately, improving staff welfare within available resources, and positioning KASU as a true center of excellence for Northern Nigeria. That work will not be derailed by sensationalism.
Soon, the curtain will fall on this political theater. When it does, the people of Kaduna will see with clarity who built institutions, and who only billed them. They will know who invested in the future of their children, and who invested in headlines.
_Zubair Abdurra’uf Idris is a Public Affairs Analyst and Board Member, Nigeria Electricity Management Services Agency, NEMSA. He writes from Kaduna._
