Impacts of Academic Staff Union of Universities Strikes on Human Capital Development in Nigeria “2015-2022”

Abstract

The constant disruption of academic activities through shutting down universities in Nigeria has become a recurring plague due to the inability of the Federal Government to satisfactorily meet the demands of Academic Staff Union of Universities on issues bordering on welfare of workers. These have translated to frustrations, damage, and tremendous setbacks as a result of industrial actions that have led to reduction in productivity due to lack of investment on human capital.The foregoing phenomenon precipitated the innate desire to: examine the extent to which academic staff union of universities strikes have affected the interest of students on education in Nigeria; and ascertain the extent to which academic staff union of universities strikes have led to loss of efficient and effective lecturers to other lucrative jobs.The study adopted an aggregate of qualitative sources; notably, information was gleaned from journals, textbooks, newspapers, web pages and government publications. Data collected were analyzed through historical and interpretative methods. Human capital theory was used as the theoretical umbrella. The results showed that there was migration of lecturers to foreign countries in search of better condition of service. Privileged Nigerians were sent abroad to study, and extension of academic programs to the students who could not afford to study abroad. The paper recommended amongst others that the Federal government of Nigeria should pay salary that would encourage, retain and attract lecturers from diverse fields to pick up employment from Nigeria