Niger Delta Students Ask FG To Involve Students In ASUU Negotiations

Students in the Niger Delta region have called for a permanent solution to the incessant strike action by university lecturers in the country, and demanded the inclusion of students in negotiations by the Academic Staff Union of Universities ( ASUU).

ASUU on February 14^th embarked on a one-month strike over the alleged inability of the Federal Government to meet their demands.

 The National President, Niger Delta Students Union Government, Nepha Goodness, who addressed journalists in Port Harcourt on Tuesday,  frowned on the way the lecturers embark on strike without considering the effects of their industrial action on students.

He said students should not be excluded from negotiations to decide their future, but should be involved as stakeholders.

The students’ leader asked ASUU to adopt another approach to get government to accede to their demands instead of shutting down academic activities.

Goodness, while addressing newsmen in Port Harcourt over the ongoing one-month strike, said students are always the losers whenever ASUU goes on strike.

The students’ leader, said,

”Lecturers still receive their salaries, even go ahead with their other businesses while the strike last and we the students are left with the burden of paying for house or hostel accommodations that expires without use.

“The academic year  is hurriedly completed after the strike without proper completion of the course outlines and yet we complain of half-baked graduates on the streets.

“Can’t ASUU devise another means of protesting against the government? Why is the burden of demands hitch on the students to carry? Enough is Enough.”

He said Niger Delta students were looking forward to “a permanent solution to these issues and not temporal solutions that end up subjecting the students to untimely paying for sins they did not commit.”