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From Sola Ojo, Kaduna
The chairman of the task force on the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike, National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Dominic Philip, on Wednesday gave reasons why the earlier planned protest in Kaduna could no longer be held.
The students body has earlier announced its plans to blocked public places including Kaduna-Abuja highway by the Federal Cooperative College, Kaduna, to express its dissatisfaction over the lingering industrial action by the university lecturers.
Dominic, who addressed journalists at the Secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Kaduna said, the protest was suspended due to interventions by voices of reasoning from across the country as well as security advice from Kaduna State government.
To him, “the current state of our tertiary institutions with particular reference to our public universities is a sad reality that we have refused to accept. This is because we have effortlessly come to the conclusion that there is not enough commitment being demonstrated by the parties concerned to bring an immediate end to the lingering strike that has made a sore of our university’s academic calendar.
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“This is evidenced by the many fruitless meetings, negotiations and re-negotiations which have characterised the entire period with not a single result in sight with regards to peaceably resolving the impasse between ASUU and the federal government.
“The task force on mobilization for the mass action on ASUU strike of NANS and some concerned stakeholders had earlier concluded plans to commence mass action which includes protest march, civil disobedience and other instruments in our arsenal to drive home our demands, from Wednesday, September 21, 2022.
“However, due to several calls from well-meaning Nigerians and calls by the security agencies for considerations of the peculiarity of Kaduna with regard to the volatility of the security of the city, thus, we have made compromises to our earlier plans of commencing mass action today, by deferring the protest to also consolidate on the new schedule released by the National Executive Council of NANS led by Come Usman Umar Barambu.
“Our decision is also to enable the security agencies reach out to government and the leadership of the National Assembly who have displayed for the first time genuine commitment to intervene in the ongoing impasse,” he said.
He called on the traditional and religious leaders, some of who are chancellors of public universities, to intervene in the lingering crisis between the federal government and ASUU.
“The traditional institutions are with no doubt a very strong tool to compel the government to rise to its responsibility of paying more attention to the education of the citizenry,” he added.
