Following a seven-month standoff between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, has made known its intentions to halt operations at all international airports in the country
The national body of NANS met over the weekend in Akure, the capital of Ondo State, and condemned the way the Federal Government was treating the lecturers who were on strike as well as education in general.
Students claimed that the four-day closure of highways and expressways was a success, which is why they decided to stop international travel beginning on September 19, 2022, so that the bourgeois and the government would experience the suffering that students had gone through for the previous seven months.
The NANS National Task Force on “End ASUU Strike Now” Chairman, Ojo Raymond Olumide, revealed that students were already tired of pleading with both parties about the necessity of ending the strike during a press conference.
“The President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration must settle all outstanding arrears and the lecturers’ salaries”, Olumide said, adding that the airports that would be occupied will remain closed until the strike is called off.
“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 will, by this statement, not beg again. We shall be mobilizing all students to shut down the country. No Education! No Movement!”
Olumide also criticized the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, over his purported comment on the barricade of federal roads by the students, noting that the strike had continued to linger due to the absence of children of the political class in public universities.
He said, “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.”
