The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has appealed to all presidential aspirants, including the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to come to the aid of Nigerian students.
The students have urged the politicians to help raise funds to settle the demands of the striking university lecturers, who extended their industrial action for another three months.
The students’ body made the appeal in a statement signed by the Chairman, Ogun State Joint Campus Committee (JCC), Kehinde Damilola Simeon.
Recall that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) had embarked on the strike action and vowed to continue extending the same until the Federal Government accedes to its demands.
The union is demanding the revitalisation of public universities, earned academic allowances and the deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution for payment of university lecturers.
The statement said the students decided to make the appeal to the politicians and foremost aspirants following the failure of the Federal Government to meet the demands of ASUU despite many dialogues.
NANS urged all presidential aspirants to come to the aid of Nigerian students to ensure that public universities are reopened, insisting that if the politicians can afford the exorbitant cost of nomination forms, they can afford to rescue Nigerian students.
“All the Presidential aspirants, especially those from the ruling APC and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) must rise up and come to the rescue of Nigerian students.
“If truly the aspirants mean well for Nigerians as they are claiming and if they have the love of Nigerian students at heart, they should raise the fund to meet the demands of ASUU since the Federal government has failed woefully in its commitment to improving the education sector.
“Today in Nigeria, both university and polytechnic education is paralysed due to the ongoing strike actions by both members of ASUU and ASUP. It is very unfortunate and unacceptable.
“Nigerian students hereby call on the presidential aspirant, in the spirit of patriotism and in the interest of development to rally around Nigerian students.
“All of these aspirants paid huge amounts of money to procure their nomination forms, so donating funds to rescue the tertiary education in Nigeria should not be too difficult for them,” it said.
“It is only by doing this, that Nigerian students and Nigerians, in general, will respect and show support for their ambitions”.
