'ASUU Should Not Hold Students to Ransom'

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has been urged not to hold students to ransom anymore, while bargaining with the federal government for improved conditions of service. Chairman, Board of Trustees Students in Nigeria Re-awakening Initiative (STINRI), Mr. Nathan Ogunike, told THISDAY in an interview yesterday, a situation where students' future was jeopardised because of the teachers' agitation was reprehensible. He spoke just as stakeholders attending the 28th Conference of the Association of
Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (AVCNU) yesterday in Akure said everybody was a loser in the lingering dispute between ASUU and the federal government that had led to the closure of universities since July. Nathan called on the union to hasten up the process towards the reopening of the universities by calling off the strike in the interest of the students. According to him, his group will mobilise the people for a protest if both the federal government and ASUU failed to resolve their differences.
He added that the federal government should honour the agreement it entered into with ASUU, while the union should go back to the classroom for the sake of the youths. Meanwhile, as the 28th conference of AVCNU opened yesterday in Akure, stakeholders lamented that everybody would be a loser on the long run in the face-off between the federal government
and ASUU. The conference, hosted by the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), drew participants from the 129 public and private universities in Nigeria and other stakeholders such as the Institute of Chattered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) and the National University Commission (NUC). In his welcome address, FUTA Vice- Chancellor, Prof. Adebiyi Daramola, expressed regret that the nation has lost four months to the ASUU strike, adding that the dispute was already having negative effects on the universities.