ASUU strike: Benue varsity students protest... Read more

OVER 1000  undergraduates from Benue State University, Makurdi, on Wednesday, staged a peaceful protest to impress on the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to call off its four-month-old strike.


The students, who carried  placards with different inscriptions like “FG/ASUU face-off, our children suffer most,” “ASUU Strike: Enough is Enough, call it off now,” “We don’t know Boko Haram, FG/ASUU we know,” “Save our future now,” among others.

The students, who converged at IBB Square, Makurdi,  went through major streets of Makurdi to press home their demand.

Led by  Osaji Jacob, president of Coalition of Civil Society Organisations for Transparency in Governance and Philip Agbese, president, Concerned Benue Citizens Coalition, expressed sadness over the prolonged strike, which they said had unreasonably kept students at home.

Agbese, who spoke to newsmen on behalf of the group, described as unwarranted and selfish, the continued insistence by ASUU to stay off  classrooms, even as he appealed to lecturers to go back to their duty posts, so that Nigerian students can get value for the money they have paid to get education.

The coalition wondered why ASUU was so desperate to blackmail every Nigerian that had identified with the struggle to have students back in school, stressing that the union’s action was already taking a negative turn on the wellbeing of the common citizenry of the country.

“There is nothing wrong about a strike by comrades to press home their demand, but it becomes injurious when the masses they seek to protect become victims and direct beneficiaries of their action.

“We are aware that if ASUU is given all the allocations accruing to the federation account with the police, Army, health workers and even the okada riders, there will still be no room for them to enjoy all they selfishly wish to abrogate to themselves,” the coalition said.

The youth noted that it would be foolhardy for the striking lecturers to put themselves between the poor Nigerian masses, whose children were wallowing at home and the obvious elitist ASUU leadership, whose  children, he said, were scattered across the world’s prestigious universities.

The coalition, therefore, warned that if ASUU and the Federal Government, which he described as two giant elephants, continue to fight, the people may be forced to either join or fight for its survival through other means.