ASUU STRIKE: EX-STUDENT LEADERS BERATE FG, STUDENTS FLAY LECTURERS

Former Student Union leaders of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife have condemned what they described as the insensitivity of the federal government to the 2009 agreement it entered with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

The student unionists also threw their weight behind the ongoing industrial action embarked upon by their teachers.
Rising from a meeting held at the Awolowo Hall Café of the institution, the student activists including former officers of the proscribed Students’ Union Government of OAU urged the federal government to identify with the plights of the striking workers and fully implement the agreement it entered with them.
In the communiqué issued at the end of the meeting yesterday when the student activists visited the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Osun state chapter during a protest to drive home their positions, the student activists also called for the immediate reinstatement of all proscribed students’ unions by the management of the institution.
Meanwhile, the National Association of Nigeria University Students (NANUS) has called on the Senate committee on education to intervene and end the ongoing strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

NANUS National President, Peter Bassey Asuquo who met with the chairman of the senate committee on education, Senator Uche Chukwumerije (PDP, Abia), denied claims by ASUU that the students were in full support of the strike.
“We are indeed saddened to the highest pitch and peak that ASUU has unilaterally decided to embark on yet another needless strike to drive home a point against the federal government,” Asuquo said.
According to him, “Our sore point of grievance is anchored on the fact that the ongoing ASUU strike has exerted an even greater negative toll on the University students much more than any other party in the impasse.”
Senator Chukwumerije, queried the paucity of IGR generated by universities on occasions when the education committee carried out oversight on the universities. He queried the incessant strikes and called for alternatives to resolution of disputes between tertiary unions and the federal government.