ASUU Strike: Students Threaten To Shut Private Universities

protesting students

Students under the aegis of National
Association of Nigerian Students, NANS,
yesterday, protested the ongoing strike by the
Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, in
Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State capital, calling on the
Federal Government to accede to the demands of the union. The students who have had enough of the
strike also threatened to shut down activities
in the private universities in the country
should the crisis linger on. Displaying several placards with various
inscriptions, the students lampooned the
Federal Government for its failure to honour
the agreement it entered into with ASUU since
2009. Asafon Sunday, Director of Action and
Mobilisation NANS, South–West, who spoke
on behalf of the students claimed between
2000 and 2011 the Nigerian government
earned about N48.48 trillion from the sale of
oil alone, against N3.10 trillion earned between 1979 and 1999. He said the Federal Inland Revenue Service,
FIRS, in 2012 financial year alone generated
N5.12 trillion from tax paid by the masses. “With this tremendous upswing in the
revenue at the disposal of the Nigerian
government, one would have expected such
to translate to commensurate improvement in
the quality of Nigeria’s public education as
well as other social services.” He condemned the refusal of Federal
Government to budget a reasonable amount
of money to education sector as
recommended by UNESCO which is 26 per cent
of the country’s total budget, noting that
some countries with smaller Gross Domestic Product, GDP, like Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya,
Morocco and Botswana had budgetary
allocations to education sector as follow, 31
per cent,20 per cent,23 per cent ,17.7 per cent
and 19 per cent respectively to 8.5 per cent
that Nigeria government had budgeted for education in 2013. A student leader from Ekiti State University,
EKSU, Steven Adara also expressed his
disappointment in the present administration.
He lamented that government officials and
prominent Nigerians were not bothered about
the crisis in the public universities because their children were in private schools or
overseas. “We will mobilise and disrupt academic
activities in the private universities because it
is the sons and daughters of the rich that are
in these schools.”