#ASUUStrike Update: NANS, Youth Council Oppose ASUU Strike ...Read more

By Damilola Oyedele  

The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) and the National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) have declared their opposition to the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff  Union of Universities (ASUU), describing the action as self-serving and hypocritical.

Both bodies alleged that the N87 billion being demanded as earned allowances was not a part of the 2009 agreement, but was calculated and handed to the government to insert into the agreement in February 2013.

The National President of NANS, Mr. Yinka Gbadebo, speaking at a press briefing in Abuja yesterday, also warned ASUU against taking alleged steps to divide the students' body.

This, he said, in response to some protests by some students in support of the ongoing action which was now in its 102th day.

The Chairman of the Needs Assessment Report Implementation Committee and Benue State Governor, Gabriel Suswan, had already met with NANS and NYCN where he updated them on the efforts of the government at improving the infrastructure of the universities.

The two bodies accused ASUU of deliberately frustrating efforts by the students and youth body to meet its leaders and discuss the union's grouses, saying that this suggested that the union has something to hide.

Gbadebo, who spoke on behalf of two bodies, added that the causes being pursued by the union are not in the interest of Nigerians, as the union is propagating.

He disclosed that NANS and NYCN had already obtained copies of the 2009 Agreement and were convinced that ASUU was being egocentric in its demands for its own gains and not in the  interest of the Nigerian university system.

"The N87billion being demanded by ASUU was not calculated and stated clearly as at the time the 2009 agreement was reached. The N87billion was generally calculated and presented to government to be inserted into the agreement by ASUU in February this year," he alleged.
Gbadebo decried the concerns of ASUU as regards the Needs Assessment into Primary and Secondary demands.

While NANS and NYCN backed ASUU's secondary demands, they doubted the sincerity of its primary demands.

"The primary demands are the earned allowance totalling N87billion being demanded by ASUU for its members. ASUU is also demanding that all landed properties in public universities nationwide should be allocated to it by the government to be managed via a company called ASUU Holdings," he said.

Gbadebo further said: "The secondary demands are those which encapsulate conducive environment for teaching and learning, total implementation of UNESCO recommendation on education, among others. A total of N400billion is being demanded by ASUU for these for 2013."

The primary reasons, Gbadebo said have become the main reasons why ASUU had refused to call off the strike.

"The N87billion  being demanded by ASUU was not calculated and stated clearly as at the time the 2009 agreement was reached. The N87billion was generally calculated and presented to government to be inserted into the agreement by ASUU in February this year," he alleged.

NANS and NYCN, however,  appealed to ASUU to avoid politicising the strike, and call off the action in the interest of Nigerian students.

They called for a National Education Stakeholders' Dialogue to come up with practical solutions to reverse the declining trend in the nation's education system.

"We want to equally sound a clear note of warning to some ASUU members who are relentlessly trying to polarise our dear organisation, NANS through sponsorship of fallacious, slanderous and libelous publications by fictitious and to a great extent unauthorised persons in the name of NANS to desist from this act of shame, as any further sponsorship of such will be met with the full venom of the wrath of Nigerian students and youths," Gbadebo said.