Ongoing industrial action by members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, is seen by some as one of the reasons people patronise private universities, as lecturers there are not members of the union and would not go on strike.
Meanwhile, another set of people not participating in the strike are lecturers in some state universities and those in universities not yet unionised.
On their part, newly-established public universities are given observer status for some years before being admitted into ASUU.
Nigeria has 49 federal universities, 54 owned by state governments and 109 private ones.
Federal universities are currently on strike while some state-owned are not part of the strike, the reason being that some major demands by ASUU are peculiar only to federal universities.
The issue of inadequate funding of the education sector cuts across all public universities, just like the demand for better salaries and other conditions of service.
However, the issues of revitalisation fund and the controversial Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System, IPPIS, are peculiar to only federal universities since it is the FG that uses IPPIS to pay its workers and revitalisation fund is given by it to its universities.
Both federal and state universities are affected by proliferation of universities, as some state governments, for instance Abia and Delta grappling with the challenge of funding one university, are creating more.
The financial implications of the demands by ASUU run into billions of naira. For example, going by an agreement signed by the FG with the union, government is expected to commit N200 billion annually for five years to the revitalisation of the sector.
To meet this segment of the ASUU demand, the Federal Government must cough out N1trillion.
But the best it did recently was the release of N30 billion as a sign of commitment.
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