Students threaten to shut private varsities over ASUU strike

Ado Ekiti — UNIVERSITY students under
the umbrella of National Association of
Nigerian Students, NANS, yesterday, took
to the streets in Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State
capital, calling on the Federal Government
to accede to the demands of the Academic
Staff Union of Universities, ASUU.
They equally threatened to shut down
activities in the private universities in the
country should the crisis linger on.
The students who displayed several
placards with various inscriptions,
lambasted the Federal Government for its
failure to honour the agreement it entered
into with ASUU since 2009.

Speaking on behalf of his colleagues,
Asafon Sunday, Director of Action and
Mobilisation NANS, South–West, claimed
between 2000 and 2011 the Nigerian
government earned about N48.48 trillion
from the sale of oil alone, against N3.10
trillion earned between 1979 and 1999
He said the Federal Inland Revenue
Service, FIRS, in 2012 financial year
alone generated N5.12 trillion from tax
paid by the masses.
According to him: “With this tremendous
upswing in the revenue at the disposal of
the Nigerian government, one would have
expected such to translate to
commensurate improvement in the
quality of Nigeria’s public education as
well as other social services.”
He condemned the refusal of Federal
Government to budget a reasonable
amount of money to education sector as
recommended by UNESCO which is 26
per cent of the country’s total budget.
Sunday noted that some countries with
smaller Gross Domestic Product, GDP,
like Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Morocco
and Botswana had budgetary allocations
to education sector as follow, 31 per
cent,20 per cent,23 per cent ,17.7 per
cent and 19 per cent respectively to 8.5
per cent that Nigeria government had
budgeted for education in 2013.
Also speaking, Steven Adara ,a student
leader from Ekiti State University, EKSU ,
lamented that government officials and
prominent Nigerians were not bothered
about the crisis in the public universities
because their children were in private
schools overseas.
According to him: “We will mobilise and
disrupt academic activities in the private
universities because it is the sons and
daughters of the rich that are in these
schools.”