As the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) remain unmet, with the strike still ongoing, the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has vowed to shut down airports across the country from September 19, promising to ground activities, due the 7-month-old strike by ASUU which has negatively impacted a large percentage of Nigerian students.
The union expressed its displeasure over the federal government’s failure to meet the demands of ASUU and the students association, claiming that its four-day protest on highways and expressways was a success.
As things continue to get heated, the chairman NANS national task force on “End ASUU Strike Now”, Ojo Raymond Olumide via a statement disclosed that members of the association will begin to disrupt international travels at Airports starting from September 19, which they feel is an ideal way to make the government suffer and feel what federal universities students have been feeling since the commencement of the strike.
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In his words; “We shall begin another round of protest next week by storming the airspaces on Monday, 19th September 2022 to #OccupyTheAirports#. We want to let the world know about the pains and anguish students are going through.
“Nigerian students whose parents create the commonwealth cannot continue to be suffering at home alongside our lecturers while the few who gain from our sweats and blood have their kids abroad jollying and flexing.
“We call on students to rise and join us as we take our destinies into our hands. Our demands remain consistently clear and simple.
“We call on ASUU leadership for a meeting as soon as possible to discuss solidarity actions and plan for the next phase of the struggles. Nigerian students are not subjected to security agencies and we haven’t seen any step from them to avert the ASUU strike.
‘’Being on the road for the past four days and had garnered a lot of solidarity, grounding the airport is for us to get solidarity and we will keep on grounding the local and international airports and they know the effect of us grounding the airport, the only thing we request for them is to open our campuses back.
“They should give enough budgetary allocation, we are not asking for 26 percent we are asking for 22 percent. We pass a vote of no confidence on both Ministers of Labour and Education. We call on the Buhari government to pay all outstanding arrears and salaries of the lecturers.
“The policy of ‘No Work No Pay’ is a Fascist one; it is, therefore condemnable and unacceptable to all the millions of students in Nigeria.
“We will by this statement not beg again. We shall be mobilizing all students to shut down the country. No Education, no movement!”
He further stated that students are tired of pleading with both parties about the necessity of ending the strike, adding that the Muhammadu Buhari-led regime must “settle all outstanding arrears and the lecturers’ salaries.”
It is quite disheartening that the demands of ASUU have continued to fall on deaf ears of the Federal government, which has seen the strike linger for so long, jeopardizing the future of Nigerian youths.