In
a press statement released by NAUS on Friday, signed by its Chairman,
Secretary-General, and Publicity Secretary; Eruobami Ayobami, Olaniyan Saleem,
and Lawal Idris, respectively, made available to our correspondent, the student
body bemoaned the continued closure of schools following the strike action
embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities.
It
said the strike which was already over 60 days was beginning to take a negative
turn on students, particularly now that they seemed not to know when the
challenge was coming to an end.
The
statement read in parts, “In view of the prolonged nature of the strike, it is
beginning to take a negative turn on our students, particularly now that we all
seem not to know when this challenge is going to finally come to an end.
“We want to use this press conference to appeal to the
government again, to consider the plights of many of our members who have been
affected seriously by this strike, and to also plead with the Federal
Government to revisit its position on ASUU and the need for both parties to
return to the negotiating table so that all of the issues can be resolved once
and for all.
“We believe that if the government is concerned about the
deplorable education system in Nigeria, it won’t have any problems implementing
the agreement they freely entered with the Academic Staff Union of
Universities.
NAUS stated that, in its previous statement on March 21,
published by The PUNCH, it had called the attention of the government to the
issues affecting Nigerian students.
It said further, “we had expected that between then and now,
something tangible would have been done by government or its agencies to
assuage the strike but alas, Government doesn’t think it’s important to resolve
the problems over 60 days since the strike started! We, therefore, want to
reiterate that as an association, we have vowed not to go mute/or be silent
until the necessary actions are taken.
“We state unequivocally that ASUU’s demands are correct and
we do believe it’s for the progress and stability of our university system. For
us, we do not see where the following demands by the academic staff union are
faulty
“Government has arrogantly refused to obey its agreement
with ASUU.
“The Integrated Personnel and Payrolls Information System
(IPPIS) developed by the government to pay civil servants and strangely
Academic staff has since shown failures and even causing major challenge within
the university system.
Even, the Government, recently, in the national dailies,
reported that the IPPIS software was hacked! That is a major revelation of the
weakness of that platform as a payment system, government should rather embrace
the UTAS payment system that ASUU developed.”
The student body also called on the government to pay the
allowances owed to the lecturers and to equally lift the dying infrastructures
on campuses to meet the 21st-century standards.
It concluded, “We are begging all the players involved in
this matter to shield their swords for the sake of education and our future.
“Please, let a stop be to all the mischief and hanky-panky
that have continued to draw us back as a nation. This is what the Nigerian
university students want.”