The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Monday announced the extension of its strike by three months with a view to giving the Federal Government enough time to resolve, satisfactorily, all the outstanding issues between them.
ASUU President, Emmanuel Osodeke, made the announcement in a statement, after a meeting of the union’s National Executive Council at the University of Abuja. Already, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, has assured that the Federal Government would resume talks with the lecturers this week. However, the union insisted that it was yet to get any official communication with respect to a meeting or talks with the government.
In reaction to the announcement, students from various tertiary institutions in Edo State, namely; the University of Benin; Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma; and Edo State Polytechnic, Usen, on Monday, protested and barricaded the gate of the Benin Airport, along Airport Road, in protest against the three-month extension to the prolonged strike by ASUU. They were also at the secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Edo Council, to register their grievances. Also students from various higher institutions in Lagos staged a protest against the extension of the strike.
The President, National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Sunday Asefon, in a statement titled ‘ASUU strike extension: The silence of the government and the ruling class; the nation must feel the heat’ called on students across the country to occupy all federal roads for a minimum of three hours on Tuesday.
In his words:
“The National Action is tagged ‘Operation Test Run’. It shall be held in all the 36 states of the federation. Federal roads across the 36 states shall be occupied for a minimum of three hours. The operation shall be a precursor to a total shutdown that will be decided during our senate meeting/pre-convention on Saturday, May 14, 2022. Our decision from the pre-convention shall be binding.
“Our proposal to congress on May 14 shall be the total blockage of the airport roads across the country and total disruption of political party primaries, blockage of the National Assembly until they are committed to passing legislation banning public office holders from sending their children to universities abroad.”