The Minister of Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, has come under fire from the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) for his remarks that the federal government would not borrow money to meet the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), which is on strike, and that parents should plead with university lecturers to return to the classrooms.
In addition, NANS intimated that it will contact the federal government through the Minister of Labor and Employment, Chris Ngige, and his equivalent in education, Adamu Adamu, in order to learn the government’s position in response to Keyamu’s comments.
Comrade Odiahi Thomas Ikhine, Vice President (Special Duties) of NANS, said during a news conference on Monday in Abuja that students throughout the nation were upset by remarks attributed to Keyamo, according to which the government lacks the funds to meet ASUU’s requests.
According to reports, Keyamo requested parents to implore ASUU to end the strike since, in his opinion, the government couldn’t pay for the 1.2 trillion demands made by the union as recommended by the committee created by Emeritus Professor Nimi Briggs to renegotiate the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement.
Ikhine responded by saying that the NANS leadership would meet with Adamu and Ngige to discuss the situation in detail after President Buhari ordered that the strike be ended within two weeks.
He predicted that students’ efforts to ensuring the right thing is done would not waver.
He said: “
On the issue of ASUU strike, we as an organization have been doing our best, we have been able to pressure the government over time and ASUU and just recently the NLC called for a protest and we joined them and as it is we are not relenting.
“Obviously, we cannot do otherwise because of the volatile nature of the country occasioned by insecurity. But we intend to meet the Minister of Labour and Minister of Education this week.”
He took the opportunity to make it clear that NANS was not involved in the supposed report that called for the ouster of Mr. Godwin Emefiele, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
He claimed that some anonymous figures posing as the NANS (Zone D) leadership urged the ouster of Emefiele for what they referred to as the economic bastardization of the country.
He said “Let it be expressly clear that these impostors are neither students nor leadership of NANS in the South West but rather political jobbers readily available for the highest bidders for the campaign of calumny against politically exposed persons for the purpose of blackmailing or settling political scores.
“We, therefore, wish to dissociate ourselves and the name of our organization from the unpatriotic call for the sack of the CBN Governor.
“It is our belief that the CBN governor needed to be given moral support to develop fall back monetary strategy that will serve as an economic palliative for our nation at this time of global economic gloom.
“We call on security agencies to do their best in bringing impostors who go about heating polity and engaging in actions capable of affecting national security and stability to book especially at this time of fragile national security experience.”
The student body has revealed that the association’s existing leadership is transitioning to the next administration and that a constitution that would guarantee that only sincere students apply for leadership posts has been adopted.
“The transition process is on and as it is now, a NANS president cannot stay more than 13 months, 12 months officially then three months of grace period. So as it is now we are expecting that the convention is not going to exceed this August.
“This month end, from all indication this administration will transit power to an organization that will be run based on available rules and regulations in the constitution.
“What we are going to ensure now is, if you are not a student in a subscribe institution in the country you cannot hold any office in NANS,” he said.
