Locked Down during the Lockdown

Abstract

Abstract:While the pandemic came with the lockdown that was observed as a measure to curtail the spread of the COVID-19 disease, public Universities in Nigeria were under another kind of lockdown. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in Nigeria was on a nationwide strike with strict enforcement of compliance to no teaching and other academic activities in every member university. Since academic activities were on a halt, did that mean academics had no academic engagement? Not exactly; different individuals engaged in activities that had academic bias, utilising digital and non-digital tools. This paper looks at how the pandemic shaped these different academic activities within the Nigerian academic circles, as well as the availability and affordability of the digital infrastructure needed for Internet-driven engagement for Nigerian academics. The paper is based on oral conversations with academics from different Nigerian Universities—federal, state and private; as well as on digitally driven questionnaire. The findings show that out of the 1000 academics who was reached through electronic means like email and WhatsApp, using Google form 27 responded and returned the questionnaire on the given deadline. The respondents engaged in various academic activities with writing, research and conference attendance on Zoom virtual meeting app taking the lead. Provisions for conference attendance online was catered for by mostly individual respondents.