Council of Students’ Union Presidents (CSUP) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to sack the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, and his Labour and Employment counterpart, Senator Chris Ngige for failing to resolve the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and other university-based unions in two weeks as directed.
The organisation, which comprises all Students’ Union presidents across universities in Nigeria, also lamented the continuous loss of students to incessant killing by terrorists as a result of their prolonged stay at home because of the strike.
Speaking at a press conference in Abuja, yesterday, CSUP Convener and SUG president of Federal University of Technology (FUT) Minna, Shuaib Yahaya, said failure by the government to end the strike would lead to mass protest across the country.
The president had given the two ministers two weeks to resolve the strike by ASUU and other university-based unions.
Yahaya said many students who were supposed to be in school but resorted to doing other jobs instead of staying idle get kidnapped and killed in the process.
He urged the government to look into the demands of ASUU and attend to them so that they could return to school.His words: “It is true when they say, ‘when two elephants meet; only the grass suffers.’ It is quite obvious here that both the Federal Government and ASUU have nothing to lose in this fight.
“This is because while the strike action is ongoing, the salary of the Federal Government keep flowing and at the end of every strike action, nothing stops the salaries of ASUU members also from flowing.
“The only most unfortunate and innocent victim here, you would agree with us, are the Nigerian students, who have everything to loose.
“Even when the strike would have been called-off, so many of the students will not be able to go for Youth Service due to age limit; many students after graduation would not be able to afford government jobs due to the age consideration.”
Yahaya also said the strike had increased the rate of drug abuses, prostitution and thuggery among other vices by students who under normal circumstances should be in school acquiring knowledge.
He added that students and campuses had been exposed to insecurities, stressing that students have become daily victims of kidnapping by the bandits.
According to him, the CSUP has written to the Ministry of Education and issued a seven-day ultimatum to them to reach an amicable resolution with ASUU or face nationwide protests.
“We hereby appeal to the Federal Government to meet the demands of ASUU within the shortest period of time as failure to do so would leave us with no option than to go ahead with our peaceful demonstration even amidst this security instability.
“For it is better to die for something than to live for nothing. We also call for the immediate removal of the Minister of Education and the Minister of Labour,” he added.
Meanwhile, the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) has expressed concerns over the prolonged ASUU strike. The NNPP Chairman in Katsina State, Alhaji Sani Liti, expressed the concern yesterday in Katsina while addressing newsmen on the party’s agenda.
According to Liti, the situation has become worrisome, adding that it became necessary for them to show their concerns because it has forced over 10 million students to remain redundant at home.
He, therefore, suggested that the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) should sacrifice the funds they realised from the sales of nomination forms to settle ASUU’s demands.
“If the more than 10 million young Nigerians are allowed to continue to remain at home, we ask Nigerians to start an ‘ASUU back to Class’ contributory fund.
“We believe that Nigerians shall contribute money to ASUU and have them return to classes. Should 60 million Nigerians contribute N1,000 only, the total money should be about N60 billion.
“Political parties, especially PDP and APC, should sacrifice all their income from the sale of forms, estimated to be over N30 billion to ASUU.
“In addition, the major candidates, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Mr Bola Tinubu should also sacrifice half of the amount they expended during the convention of their political parties,” he suggested.