NANS promises to halt airports

The National Association of Nigerian Students has vowed action against the ongoing strike action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities.

The association said it would take its protest to the international airports across the country and halt all flight activities.

Students are already tired of pleading with both parties over the need to end the strike speaking in Akure, the Ondo State capital, the Chairman, NANS National Task Force on ‘End ASUU Strike Now,’ by Ojo Olumide.

According to him, the four-day shutdown of busy highways and expressways had been a success, hence the move to disrupt international travels as from September 19, 2022 in order for “the bourgeois and the government to feel the pains that had subjected students to in the past seven months.”

He said , “We shall begin another round of protest next week by storming the airspaces on Monday, 19th September 2022 to #OccupyTheAirports#. We want to let the world know about the pains and anguish students are going through.

“Nigerian students whose parents create the commonwealth cannot continue to be suffering at home alongside our lecturers while the few who gain from our sweats and blood have their kids abroad jollying and flexing.

“We call on students to rise and join us as we take our destinies into our hands. Our demands remain consistently clear and simple.

“We call on ASUU leadership for a meeting as soon as possible to discuss solidarity actions and plan for the next phase of the struggles.

“Nigerian students are not subjected to security agencies and we haven’t seen any step from them to avert ASUU strike.

Being on the road for the past four days and had garnered a lot of solidarity, grounding the airport is for us to get solidarity and we will keep on grounding the local and international airports and they know the effect of us grounding the airport, the only thing we request for them is to open our campuses back.

“They should give enough budgetary allocation we are not asking for 26 percent we are asking for 22 percent.

“We pass a vote of no confidence on both Ministers of Labour and Education. We call on the Buhari-government to pay all outstanding arrears and salaries of the lecturers.

“The policy of ‘No Work No Pay’ is a Fascist one; it is, therefore condemnable and unacceptable to all the millions of students in Nigeria.

“We will, by this statement, not beg again. We shall be mobilizing all students to shut down the country. No Education, no movement!”

Slamming the Minister of Works, Babatunde Fashola, over his purported comment on the barricade of federal roads by the students, Olumide noted that the strike had continued to linger due to the absence of children of the political class in public universities.

“Through Nigerians, the federal and state governments became and are still uncomfortable with our protests. Instead of them responding to us responsibly and what have you we were shocked that the Minister of Works Babatunde Fashola came up with an illegal utterance befitting of only rabble-rousers and political irritants by calling out fundamental Human Rights “illegal!”

“What Minister Fashola has done is amazing. After all, the camera he found at LekkiTollGate after the massacre is still a mystery. Yet, the minister’s outburst is also another evidence that the Buhari-government hates real educational development.

“They are never apologetic and are hell-bent on destroying every remnant of state welfare left. They prefer to kill the public schools instead of revamping them. Nigerian students are not surprised that the Buhari- government does not care about public education. After all, all the politicians have their kids schooling abroad while the children of the masses that constitute 99percsnt of the population are only fit to be thugs, hard workers, and sex slaves.

“We dare say that this cruelty will not continue anymore and, it is on this note we call on the national leadership of ASUU to synergise with Nigerian students in achieving this struggle that we have commenced by ensuring that a state of emergency is declared in the educational sector.”

(Punch)