The Council of Student’s Union Presidents (CSUP) has lamented that it is losing students to incessant killings from bandits attacks as a result of their prolonged stay at home due to the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, strike.
The Student Union President (SUG), Federal University of Technology (FUT) Minna, Mr Ishaka Yahaya, spoke on behalf of all SUG presidents across tertiary institutions at a news conference in Abuja on Thursday.
Yahaya said that the Federal Government and the ASUU have nothing to lose amid the strike, adding that many students who were to be in school but resorted to doing other jobs, were being kidnapped and killed in the process.
He urged the government to look into the demands of ASUU and attend to them so that they could return to school.
“It’s true when they say, when two elephants meet, only the grass suffers.
“It is quite obvious here that both the Federal Government and ASUU have nothing to lose in this fight.
“This is because while the strike is ongoing, the salaries of Federal Government staff keep flowing and at the end of every strike, nothing stops the salaries of ASUU members from also flowing.
“The only most unfortunate and innocent victim here you would agree with us, are the Nigerian students, who have everything to lose.
“Even when the strike would have been called off, so many of the students would not be able to serve the nation due to the age limit.
“So many students after graduation would not be able to get government jobs due to age limit consideration,” he lamented.
Yahaya noted that the strike had increased the rate of drug abuses, prostitution and thuggery, amongst other corresponding wantonness and purposelessness by the Nigerian students who, under normal circumstances, should be in school acquiring knowledge.
He said that the Nigerian students and campuses had been exposed to insecurities and as such, students had now become daily victims of kidnapping by the bandits.
“We hereby appeal to the Federal Government to meet the demands of ASUU within the shortest period of time as failure to do so would leave us with no option than to go ahead with our peaceful demonstration even amidst this security instability.
“For it’s better to die for something than to live for nothing,” he added.
Daily Post reports that ASUU had, on February 14, embarked on strike to press home its demands for a better welfare package, among others, a situation that has forced many Nigerian students to be at home.
