The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to comply with the requests of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to enable students to return to class.
If the government fails to end the strike by doing what is required, the student organization has vowed to stage a statewide protest.
Sunday Asefon, the President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), stated on Monday in Sokoto State that Nigerian students will not be able to stay at home as the offices of the Ministers of Education and Labour are open.
NANS executives are now in Sokoto for the association’s constitutional review conference, where they examined the organization’s forty-year constitution at Sokoto State University.
Having signed the reviewed Constitution of the association at the Sokoto State Government House, NANS President said: “The Nigerian students have concluded and given the mandate that if the Federal Government and ASUU do not resolve this between today and Friday, Nigerian students should mobilize and give the language the government understands.
“A day of national mass action has been fixed – February 28, which is next week Monday. Every Nigerian student that the ASUU strike has sent home should block all the Federal roads and the office of the Minister of Education and the office of the Minister of Labour should also be blocked. If Nigerian students are at home, office of the Minister of Education and Minister of Labour cannot be opened.”
Asefon lampooned the government, said it was playing hide and seek with ASUU since 1999 when they signed the agreement with the academic union.
“NANS is not going to stand by and watch the government destroy tertiary education in the country,” Adedayo is quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu had said the decision by ASUU to embark on strike came to him as a surprise.
This is as he claimed the union went on strike while negotiations were still ongoing and the government was already attending to their matters.
The Minister stated this during a chat with State House correspondents last week Wednesday after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting in Abuja.
Adamu said the government had already set up a committee to review the demands and position of ASUU when suddenly the union announced strike action.
“ASUU, unfortunately, has gone on strike and I am looking for them because all the issues are being addressed.
“The last thing that happened was that our committee looked at their demands, but renegotiations are going on. They submitted a draft agreement which the ministry is looking at,” Adamu said.
