ASUU is an acronym that stands for Academic Staff Union of Universities. They are the Labour Union that decides strikes actions for Academic Staff of Nigeria universities. There strike action is so prolonged that it has attracted the whole world to the country Nigeria. Watching to seeing what the government is trying to engage there productive youth into; knowing, "An Idle man, is the devil's workshop". It is important I use this platform to tell the world that not all Nigerian Federal Universities have the Labour Union ASUU. I wrote in one of Our blogs Alternative Federal University The characteristics of the University, just to iterate a little, the name of the University is the National Open University of Nigeria and it is scattered all around the 36 states of Nigeria. One could read about it in the link provided above.
Our focus today is not to debate if one is taking side with the Union or the government but to look at the mental health of most of the students who had long been at home from the Strike action. There is a saying in my part of the world that "when two elephants are fighting, the grasses suffers". We like to explore the mental health of this "grasses" and maybe appeal to both parties to come to a compromise. Two wrongs often do not make a right and if we have foundations or company's whose cooperate social responsibility is geared towards education, may be they need to come to Nigeria to help salvage this menace between the union and the Nigerian government.
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People often confuse mental health with mental illness. They are two different thing. People from this part of the world do not like to talk about it because of the stigma it gives the family but let us still drive at what health is defined by the WHO, Health is the state of physical, social and mental wellbeing not just the absence of disease. The presence of disease is physical health and people could relate with that but bringing talks on mental health is a subject we really do not want to talk about. Little do we know that some of the conditions our environment exposes our children, adolescents and even adults to could affect their mental health. Let us just try to explain mental health and try to differentiate if from mental illness.
According to WHO, "Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.”
This is beyond the absence of mental disorder or disability. Mental illness is the presence of clinical condition that affect the way a person behaves of think. Mental health goes beyond mental illness. They are factors that determines ones mental health. Social and financial circumstances, biological factors and lifestyle choice. I would not want to dwell on the first two because ones social and financial circumstances is not determine by the individual; one do not get to choice the family one is born into. Ones social and financial circumstances is mostly a function of what family one is raised. I would like to dwell on the lifestyle choices caused by the strike actions of Nigerian members of Academic staff. There action had led to the adverse lifestyle choices of most of Nigerian youth today.
The strike action coupled with the unemployment rate in the country has rendered active youth in the country useless . Many have taken into alcoholism and the use of drugs. Many do not even believe in the education system any more and result into fraud and money rituals. One is even scared to sit out this days and many ladies are prey to there boyfriend's ritual demands. If we follow the news in Nigeria and check the rate of drug use, alcoholism and money rituals, you would concur with my thoughts.
We beg Asuu to look into the future of our youth and let them return to school. The strike action is influencing many adverse lifestyle choices leading to a disrupt in mental health. Not every families could afford to take there children overseas to study.
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