NANS Blames ASUU Strike for Increase in Crime Rate
Students in Campus
• Civil society to stage mass protest in Abeokuta
Damilola Oyedele and Sheriff Balogun
The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has linked the rising wave of crime in the last two months to the idleness of students, who are currently bearing the brunt of the strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
The students’ body, therefore, appealed to the striking union and the
federal government to resume negotiations and ensure quick resolution of
the strike, which is now in its 13th week.
The acting Senate President of NANS, Mr. John Shima, while addressing a
press conference in Abuja Monday, lamented that about three years of
study time had been lost to strikes in the last 10 years.
The lost time, he said, was enough to graduate from an undergraduate course in other climes.
"ASUU and the federal government should go back to the negotiating
table. Even after wars, issues are resolved at the round table, Nigerian
students are tired of sitting at home," he said.
Shima added that although the lecturers were protesting the decline of
infrastructure in the nation's universities, the decline was not limited
to the universities alone. This, he said, had led to the continual drop
in Nigeria's standard of tertiary education.
"We call for a NEEDS Assessment in our polytechnics and Colleges of
Education as was done for the universities to ascertain their level of
decay. This may also stop unions in these institutions from embarking on
their own strikes," he said.
The students’ body appealed to President Goodluck Jonathan to urgently
appoint a substantive minister to head the education ministry.
The candidate, it added, should be an individual from the education
sector, who had exhibited the necessary competence, clear understanding
of the sector and has the capacity to command the respect of stakeholder
unions in the sector.
"We commend the out-gone education minister, Prof. Ruqqayatu Rufa’i,
for doing her best while she served as minister," Shima said.
However, a mild drama ensued at the press briefing, which had to be
truncated after a young man who claimed to be NANS Public Relations
Officer, Olaogun Victor, interrupted the proceedings on the grounds
that his presence was not acknowledged.
A group of young men also protested that the press briefing was being done without their knowledge.
A group of young men also protested that the press briefing was being done without their knowledge.
Meanwhile, the Ogun State chapter of ASUU and the civil society group
have concluded plans to stage a mass protest on Thursday in Abeokuta,
the state capital, over the lingering strike.
Addressing journalists in Abeokuta yesterday, the Secretary of Joint
Action Front (JAF), the pro-labour civil society component of the Labour
and Civil Society Coalition (LASCO), Mr. Abiodun Aremu, said JAF was
committed to the nationwide, zonal and state protests until the
government was compelled to give public education the priority attention
it deserves.
According to him, governments at all levels in the country operate
anti-poor policies, saying this was clearly expressed in their lack of
disposition to public education.
He said: "Funding of Public Education is not given the proper priority
it deserves, because the children of those in governments and their
friends are being trained in private schools in Nigeria and foreign
countries with the looted public funds."
He, therefore, said government should be blamed for all the crises in the education sector, including the incessant strikes, stressing that: "the unions in education sector are not making fresh demands."
He, therefore, said government should be blamed for all the crises in the education sector, including the incessant strikes, stressing that: "the unions in education sector are not making fresh demands."
He said: "They are on strike because government failed to implement
agreements they freely entered into and signed with the unions. For
example, the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) has been on a number of
strikes since 2009 because government failed to implement the Teacher
Special Scale (TSS) that was a product of agreement with government in
1992."
Aremu noted that the deplorable state of tertiary institutions across
the country was such that they were near total collapse except there was
urgent intervention.
He said: "As at date, JAF makes bold to state that the federal
government has refused to implement the agreement, whose funding
component ought to have been concluded in 2011. Instead, the federal
government tries to smartly cover up and deceive the public, in the
guise of government’s being broke and provide N100 billion out of the
agreed N1.518trillion.
“The other N30 billion the federal government said it has also approved
is said to be for the earned allowances of N92 billion it owed. This is
the fallacy of the N130 billion the federal government claimed it has
approved for immediate release," he added.
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