Ugochukwu Iwuchukwu
Students in the Niger Delta region have called for a permanent solution to the incessant strike action by university lecturers (the Academic Staff Union of Universities ASUU).
The Academic Staff Union of Universities ASUU had on 14th February 2022 embarked on a one-month strike over the alleged inability of the federal government to meet their demands.
The students frowned at the way the lecturers embark on strike without considering the effects of their industrial action on Nigerian students.
The National President Niger Delta Students Union Government Nepha Goodness asked ASUU to adopt another approach while protesting for their demands.
The student leader said that students are the greatest losers of the strike action by ASUU.
Nepha Goodness while addressing newsmen over the ongoing one-month strike said ‘Enough is Enough’ and called for a permanent solution to the strike.
”Lecturers still receive their salaries even go ahead of other of their businesses while the strike last and we the students are left with the burden of paying with house rents and hostel accommodations that expires without use. The academic is hurriedly completed after the strike without proper completion of the course outlines and yet we complain of half-baked graduates on the streets. Can’t ASUU devise another means of protesting against the government. Why is the burden of demands hitch on the students to carry, ‘Enough is Enough”.
”When ASUU are given the opportunity they hurried accept momentous but unsatisfactory proposals from the federal government, then later come back and complain. We look forward to a permanent solution to these issues and not temporal solutions that end up subjecting the students to untimely paying for sins they did not commit” he said.
The National President Niger Delta Students Union Government Nepha Goodness also called on both ASUU and the federal government to involve the students in their next round of negotiations.
He said that students should not be standing on the fence while someone else discusses their future.
Our correspondent who monitored the strike action reports that the strike has paralyzed academic activities at the University of Port Harcourt while state universities are currently receiving lectures.
