Education Blues: NANS urges state universities to resume activities amid ASUU strike

*The leadership of the National Association of Nigerian Students says the ASUU’s decision to declare an indefinite strike since February 2022 is ‘unpatriotic, unnecessary, wicked and definitely not in the interest of our nation nor the tertiary education system’

Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect

Describing the latest “total and indefinite strike” declared by the Academic Staff Union of Universities ASUU as “unpatriotic and wicked”, the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has urged the state-owned universities to resume academic activities in the country.

ConsumerConnect reports Mr. Sunday Asefon, President of NANS, said this in a statement issued Wednesday, August 31, 2022.

The NANS President said that the decision to extend the industrial action since February this year was easy for ASUU because the members of the academic Union keep employment at various private universities around the country.

“We have taken the time to review the decision of ASUU to declare an indefinite strike after the ongoing six-month strike. We consider the decision not only unpatriotic, unnecessary but wicked and definitely not in the interest of our nation nor the tertiary education system in Nigeria,” Asefon stated.

The statement also noted: “We call on State Government to forthwith liaise with Vice-Chancellors of state institutions to announce the resumption of academic activities and grant the Vice-Chancellors authority to enforce the resumption as state universities should never have joined the strike in the first place.”

The NANS President urged ASUU leadership in state institutions to toe the line of honour, suspend the strike and resume activities.

It is recalled that Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, ASUU President, in a statement issued Monday, in Abuja, FCT, that the National Executive Council (NEC) of the union, “resolved to transmute the roll-over strike to a comprehensive, total and indefinite strike, beginning from 12.01 a.m. on Monday, 29th August, 2022.”

Osodeke said the union had endured a “lot of deceit of the highest level in the last five and half years as the Federal Government of Nigeria engaged ASUU in fruitless and unending negotiation without a display of utmost fidelity.”