Our education not bargaining chip, OAU students lament lecturers’ strike
The students of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, on Sunday, said “enough is enough” regarding the delay caused to medical students by the strike embarked upon by the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria.
The Students’ Union at the university, led by the President, Secretary-General, and Public Relations Officer— Omoboriowo Isaac, Babatimehin Kinfeosi, and Aka Daniel, respectively — expressed frustration, saying their members were tired of being “the collateral damage in a war we did not start.”
They stated that the over two-month strike, which has paralysed academic activities for medical students, was causing their “dreams of becoming medical professionals to waste away for reasons beyond our control.”
The PUNCH reports that medical and dental students in the Colleges of Medicine and College of Health Sciences in the South-West have been bearing the brunt of the ongoing strike by MDCAN in the region.
Thousands of medical and dental students at the Colleges of Medicine at the University of Ibadan, Obafemi Awolowo Teaching Hospital, University of Lagos Teaching Hospital, University of Ado-Ekiti Teaching Hospital, and the University of Medical Sciences, Ondo, are affected by the strike.
The South-West zone of MDCAN declared an indefinite withdrawal of services by clinical lecturers in universities across the region over the non-payment of the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure.
OAU MDCAN, led by its chairman, Dr. Olufemi Ogundipe, stated in January 2025 that the strike was in line with the directive from the association’s South-West zone, which ordered clinical lecturers to stop working after the vice-chancellors of three federal universities in the region failed to place the lecturers on CONMESS, as is the case in other medical colleges at Nigerian universities.
However, the students said, “For months, clinical classes have been suspended, exams disrupted, and our academic progress stalled, all because of unresolved disputes over CONMESS and university governance policies.”
“We acknowledge the lecturers’ right to demand fair pay and conditions, but we refuse to continue bearing the brunt of this impasse,” the students said in a statement signed by their leadership.
They demanded that both the university administration and the Federal Government act swiftly to meet these demands and end the strike.
“Our education is not a bargaining chip. We, the students, are the heartbeat of this institution. We have consulted, written letters, and pleaded for dialogue, yet the silence from those in power grows louder each day,” the union stated.
According to them, over 90 days without clinical training is not just a delay; “it’s a theft of our time, a derailment of our careers, and a threat to the accreditation of our medical college.”
“We demand that all parties—MDCAN, the OAU administration, and the Federal Government—settle their differences immediately and unconditionally, resume negotiations, implement CONMESS where it is due, and get us back to our classrooms and wards. We want to learn, we want to graduate, and we want to serve our nation as doctors and dentists. This strike must end now,” the statement concluded.
