The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has threatened to shut down roads, airports, and government infrastructure if the Federal Government fails to avert a fresh strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
Speaking in Abuja on Monday, NANS Assistant General Secretary Emmanuel Adejuwon told The PUNCH, “If this strike is not averted, we will bring the country to a standstill until the future of Nigerian students is secured. The time for games is over. The Federal Government must act now. ASUU must act responsibly.”
TIMES OF NIGERIA gathered that Adejuwon accused politicians of indifference, saying: “It is obvious that strike actions only inflict pain and suffering on the children of ordinary Nigerians. The politicians whose failures created this crisis are not affected; their children are comfortably schooling abroad or in expensive private universities.”
Meanwhile, ASUU reiterated its demands at press briefings across the country.
In Ibadan, Zonal Coordinator Prof. Biodun Olaniran urged the government to implement the Yayale Ahmed report submitted in February, saying it addressed key disputes but had been ignored.
“The true test of government’s sincerity lies in how it handles the Yayale Ahmed report,” he warned.
Olaniran listed unresolved issues, including the 2009 Agreement on sustainable funding, withheld salaries, unpaid third-party deductions, and non-payment of academic allowances.
He also condemned what he called the “persistent erosion of university autonomy” through unlawful dissolution of governing councils.
In Abuja, Prof. Al-Amin Abdullahi said, “There is a crisis affecting universities in Nigeria, and it is not just a problem for ASUU; it is a problem for the entire country.”
He cited overcrowded classrooms, inadequate laboratories, and poor hostel conditions as evidence of systematic neglect.
ASUU’s Calabar Zone also rejected the government’s new Tertiary Institution Staff Loan Scheme, describing it as “a poison chalice.”
Zonal Coordinator Dr. Ikechukwu Igwenyi said, “It insults our sensibilities that a government that pays with an outdated salary structure will refuse to renegotiate, yet comes up with an impossible loan in a depressed economy.”
Both ASUU and NANS pointed to the Federal Government’s scheduled meeting on August 28 as decisive.
Adejuwon insisted: “Nigerian students will not sit idle while our future is wasted.”
