Final year students of the Federal University of Technology, Minna (FUT MINNA), Niger State greeted last week’s three-day sympathy strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) with scowls. The strike disrupted ongoing second semester examinations. ASUU had embarked on the strike in solidarity with its members in the South-east who are protesting the reluctance of the governors in that region to pay the new salary structure.
Dayo Odediran is in 500-Level in the School of Engineering: “ ASUU is here again with their problem, just when I have two papers more to go. Please, I want to get this over with and graduate,” he said.
Morgan Ohekwu, 200-Level Civil Engineering, said the strike came at “a very wrong time”. He said: “We ought to finish on the first day of that sympathy strike. Some students might not have resources to remain for three extra days because everyone was already rationing their provision. We are tired of this. Government should do something about their problems on time”.
Meanwhile, at the University of Calabar (UNICAL), many students grumbled at what they felt was an “unwarranted move” by their teachers. It turned out that a good number of the students were taken unawares by the strike. They gathered in groups to discuss it; in the hostels, in front of locked up lecture halls it was not too hard to find students sharing their views.
A member of ASUU who spoke in anonymity said: “The strike is really a warning to the government; if the Federal Government should listen to the warning it will do all of us great good”.
A 300-Level student of Political Science, Mathew Sunday, had this to say: “The government should understand the plight of the students and the lecturers by now. Must our lecturers go on strike before the government will see the need to intervene?”
Ifeoma Ugochukwu, who is in 400-Level Accounting, was quite unhappy. Her words: “I should have graduated by now but for two ASUU strikes. Please the government should listen to the lecturers. My colleagues in private universities have long graduated while I’m still in school”.
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