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.