The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) on Wednesday carpeted the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) over the ongoing indefinite strike, saying the union and its leadership are frivolous and egocentric in their demands.
ASUU, it will be recalled embarked on a nationwide strike July 2, demanding the Federal Government to implement an agreement reached in 2009, a situation that has paralysed academic activities in all public universities across the country for over three months. The students’ umbrella body and the National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) in a joint press conference, held in Abuja accused the academic union of deliberately refusing to meet with their representatives despite repeated efforts to have audience with its leadership with a view to having a better understanding of the union’s demands.
NANS President, Yinka Gbadebo, who spoke on behalf of the two bodies, said NANS representatives have met with the Federal Government’s chairman of Needs Implementation Committee, Governor Gabriel Suswan, who according to him, made copies of the agreement and status update on the demands of ASUU to the students’ body.
He said the cause being pursued by ASUU is not in the interest of Nigerian students and the public, warning that they would make all the necessary documents about the 2009 agreement public for Nigerians to confirm whose interest ASUU is actually fighting for.
NANS and NYCN said they have obtained copies of the documents and are convinced that ASUU has been egocentric in its demand from Federal Government rather than pursuing the interest of Nigerian university system. He said that the union has been playing hide and seek over the students’ request to meet with its leadership, a development he said, suggested that the union has something sinister to hide as far as the ongoing crisis is concerned.
Speaking on the demands put forward by ASUU in the 2009 negotiated agreement, the NANS President disclosed that the union’s demands, according to documents obtained from the Needs Assessment Committee, are divided into primary and secondary demands.
The youth bodies while throwing their support behind ASUU for its secondary demands said that the authenticity and sincerity of the union primary demands are questionable.
