NANS threatens to boycott election over ASUU strike

The National Union of the Nigerian Students (NANS) has threatened to boycott the 2019 general elections if the Federal Government fails to meet the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) for academic activities in the universities to resume.


Chairman of the Abuja chapter of NANS, Mr Mojeed Kolawale Omolaja stated this on Wednesday at a one day conference organised by Online Publishers Association of Nigeria (OPAN) with the theme: Free Press and Objective Reporting in the 2019 Election Year. 
“Let me inform you that the Nigerians students will not vote in the forthcoming election if academic activities do not resume in the universities. 


“In this forthcoming elections, we the FCT  chapter of NANS that controls other chairmen in other states, we have deemed fit that we are not going to participate in the election until when they call off the strike because they can’t be playing with our future. Their children are going to school abroad and we are here and they still want their children to come and rule over us with their lackadaisical attitude towards our education.”  


It is quite unfortunate that at this point in time students are at home doing nothing and we all know that an idle hand is the devil’s workshop. 
“The major reason we are at home is that ASUU is on strike and we expected the Federal Government to meet up with their demands because this incessant issue is a catastrophic setback to the students.”
“Imagine somebody will have to spend 7 to 8 years to finish a four-year programme. It’s not done abroad, is it because our parents don’t have the financial muzzle to send us abroad”  


Omolaja said students expected the Federal Government to meet the demands of ASUU as the incessant strikes have always been a setback to the students who have to expand extra years to finish their programmes.
He wondered whether the actions of the Federal Government was due to the inability of some of the parents to send their wards for oversea education due to lack of financial strength.


He regretted that the NANS has gone into negotiations with the Federal Government to resolve the crisis but rather than tackle the issue, the FG has prefers to buy the students over to their own side.
“We are not animals; we are somebody’s children and we have a role to play in nation building,” he lamented.  


He exonerated the FCT chapter of NANS from the group of NANS’ officials who paid courtesy call to the President Muhammadu Buhari and profusely eulogised him, stating that the FCT chapter of NANS stood for integrity.
“We in the FCT here are not part of those who went to eulogise the President; we stand for integrity and anything we get right in FCT will be gotten right in all the states of the federation because we lead and others follow.”


The FCT NANS chairman said the students were armed with their permanent voters cards having been sensitized to do so, adding that they would not allow the politicians to use students to achieve their selfish ambition as it impacts on the future of the students and teaming youth of the country.


The Special Adviser to the President on Diaspora, Hon Abike Dabri Erewa, reacting to NANS chairman’s speech called for a meeting with the NANS chairman while appealing to him to rescind the decision that his members should not to participate in the elections until the ASUU strike was called off.

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