PLANS may be underway by some
Nigerian students to organise from
Tuesday, a mass protest aimed at
highlighting the woes bedeviling public
education in the country.
Organised by the Joint Action Front (JAF),
the protesting students in the South-
West zone may block all roads leading to
Lagos State tomorrow.
According to JAF, the protests, which will
kick off at the Nigeria Labour Congress
(NLC) office at Yaba, Lagos at 8 a.m., will
also include zonal rallies in Kano, Ibadan,
Owerri, Calabar, Abuja, among others.
According to JAF, the aim is to draw
attention to the bleak future that awaits
Nigerian children due to the neglect of
public education, “while children of top
politicians and government officials are
trained in private schools in Nigeria and
abroad with funds looted from public
coffers.”
The Academic Staff Union of Universities
(ASUU) had, on July 2, declared an
indefinite strike over unresolved issues
contained in the 2009 FG/ASUU
Agreement.
The union took the decision “after
exhausting all available avenues,” when
the Federal Government breached a
Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
they both signed in
January 2011. One of the contentious
issues was the non-payment of Earned
Allowances.
But the Executive Secretary of the
National Universities Commission (NUC),
Prof. Julius Okojie, swiftly criticised
ASUU’s action, describing it as
unfortunate and capable of destroying
the university system.
Okojie told The Guardian: “They
(universities teachers) get their salaries.
On the issue of allowances, why can’t
they persevere? The government did not
say it would not pay. What we said was
that not all lecturers are entitled to
earned allowances. The figure they
(ASUU) came up with was huge and we
said there was a need for harmonisation,
because not all of them were entitled to
it. We needed to determine which
lecturer deserves to get the Earn
Allowance.”
However, a meeting organised by the
Federal Ministry of Education to resolve
the issue ended in a deadlock. A senior
government official was quoted as saying
that it was impossible for the Federal
Government to implement the MoU. The
union has also vowed not to suspend the
strike until its demands are met.

Fo¤ls will protest, some may be killed by stupid police men. For ASUU Satan will destory them Fo¤ls