The Association of Northern Youths for the Advancement of Peace, Harmony and Development, ANYPAD, has called on President Goodluck Jonathan to resolve the ongoing crisis between Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, and the Ministry of Education or face protest by youth from the region.
A statement by the association’s national president, Melvin Ejeh, on Friday said Nigerian university lecturers deserved better treatment from the federal government.
“Our lecturers and the entire university community deserve a better condition of service if we must grow as a nation.
We therefore call on President Goodluck Jonathan to sack the two ministers forthwith and employ all means within his disposal and resolve this once and for all,” the statement said.
The statement faulted the Minister of Education on her inability to resolve ASUU issues amicably and asked that she resign to make way for a more competent person.
“We ask the Minister of Education, Rukayat Rufai and Minister of Labour and Productivity, Emeka Wogu to resign their appointments forthwith or face mass street protest from the youths,” the statement said, adding, “This is a complete show of incompetence and lack of respect for the future of Nigeria students.”
The group noted that most of the people creating “artificial problems” in the educational sub-sector, in their time, passed through the education system with ease.
“We are aware that most of these selfish public officers today enjoyed free education and even got automatic employments. We wonder why they remain adamant to ASUU and students plights since 2009.
Our parents are always running form pillars to poles to pay schools fees in spite of the economic hardship in the country while some persons are sitting in the comfort of their office inflicting more pains on parents, guardian and students,” they said.
Meanwhile, the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, has appealed to the Federal Government and ASUU to resolve their differences as soon as possible to allow the return of academic activities to Nigerian Universities.
The NANS Vice President, National Affairs, Ahamed Jibril, on Thursday made the appeal in a press release to journalists, revealing that the strike has crumbled academic activities in the Universities.
“We, the leadership of NANS, are calling on the Federal Government particularly the Minister of Education, NUC (Nigerian University Council), ASUU and all parties involved in the ASUU issues to kindly tackle the issues that have warranted the ongoing ASUU strike as we the students are at the receiving end,” he said.
According to the student body, continuous strike by lecturers in Nigeria has severally disrupted the academic calendar thereby delaying the graduation of students from various institutions and preventing the Nigerian student from contributing effectively to the economy.
The university lecturers commenced an indefinite strike action on Monday based on the Federal Government’s failure to implement some of the issues contained in a 2009 agreement with the association.
The union also accused the government of reneging on a Memorandum of
Understanding [MoU] jointly agreed on in December 2011.
On the constant fracas on campuses that lead to the death of students, NANS called on its senators (all SUG presidents) to dialogue and apply other peaceful measures to curb the increasing rate of crisis on campuses.
“Demonstrations are not always the best option of addressing student issues; it is to the best of interest of the students to employ peaceful negotiations because it’s our campuses and academic works that are always hampered each time incidents like this occur,” the NANS president said.
The student union leader also called on the management of Nigerian institutions to be more diplomatic in dealing with student issues.
The association also commended the Federal government for the merger of EFCC and ICPC, and urged the merging bodies to work effectively to reduce corruption in the country, especially within the education sector.
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