Nigerian students under the aegies of National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, have appealed to former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, the national leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and other presidential aspirants to raise money in order to meet the demands of the striking university lecturers.
The student body made the appeal in a statement, signed by the Chairman of NANS, Ogun State Joint Campus Committee, JCC, Comrade Kehinde Damilola Simeon.
It would be recalled that members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) had extended their strike last Monday.
Some of the demands of ASUU include: revitalisation of public universities, earned academic allowances and the deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution for payment of university lecturers.
NANS said, the appeal came following the failure of the Federal government to accede to the demands of the striking lecturers.
The student body therefore urged all presidential aspirants to come to the rescue of Nigerian students towards ensuring that public universities are reopened.
“All the Presidential aspirants, especially those from the ruling APC and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) must rise up and come to the rescue of Nigerian Students.
“If truly the aspirants mean well for Nigerians as they are claiming and if they have the love of Nigerian students at heart, they should raise the fund to meet the demands of ASUU, since the Federal Government has failed woefully in its commitment to improving the education sector.
“Today in Nigeria both university and polytechnic education is paralysed due to the ongoing strike actions by both members of ASUU and ASUP. It is very unfortunate and unacceptable.
“Nigerian students hereby call on the presidential aspirant, in the spirit of patriotism and in the interest of development to rally round Nigerian students.
“All of these aspirants paid huge amount of money to procure their nomination forms, so donating funds to rescue the tertiary education in Nigeria should not be too difficult for them.
“It is only by doing this, that Nigerian students and Nigerians in general will respect and show support for their ambitions.”
