The ongoing Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike has so far, kept students all over the country at home for six months and counting with no end in sight.
In reaction to this, a Civil Society Organisation, Save Public Education Group have vowed to mobilize students for a nationwide protest if the strike doesn’t get called off. The group lamented the near collapse of the education sector in the country and added that the rise in insecurity across the Federation was a result of the failure of the sector.
According to the group’s Convener, Vivian Bello, students in public tertiary institutions across the country have spent a total of 725 days out of school and counting during the regime of President Buhari as a result of various strike actions taken by ASUU.
She said this while speaking to reporters in Abuja on Monday.
She explained,
“Education is non-negotiable as there is no alternative to it. The insecurity we are experiencing today is traceable to the failure of the education sector.
“We have watched with total awe and abhorrence the near total collapse of tertiary education in Nigeria.
“Distressing statistics show that ASUU has been on strike for a total of over 725 days, since the beginning of this administration over issues that bother largely on poor welfare, university autonomy and lack of adequate funding for universities.
“When tallied inversely, this amounts to an entire two and half years’ loss, in the educational lives of innocent Nigerian children/students in public universities across the country. It did not end there; The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics and Colleges of Education, ASUP and COEASU are all also currently on strike on similar issues as ASUU.
READ MORE: ASUU Strike; Ogun State Students Block Sagamu-Benin Expressway in Protest
“We all can see clearly that this is an all-around collapse of the tertiary education in the country,” she said.
Bello called on the Federal Government to quickly put an end to the current strike. Furthermore, she called on the government to grant the attention and resources required to totally eradicate strikes in the country’s tertiary education.
The Co-convener, SPEG, Dimeji Macaulay, also added that the group were watching and waiting to see the outcome of the meeting between ASUU and the government before declaring a 14-day ultimatum.
