‘We Are Tired Of Staying At Home’ -Kwara Students Protest Prolonged ASUU Strike
Students of various universities in Kwara State on Tuesday took to the streets in Ilorin in a peaceful protest to express their disappointment over the continued strike by the Academic Staff of Universities (ASUU).
The students who demanded an end to the strike said they were tired of staying at home and cut off from their academic pursuits.
They appealed to the relevant authorities to look into the issues that led to the strike for a resolution to be reached, as they rued watching their dream of graduating at the required time suffer setback.
They added that the lingering strike action had led many of them into social vices while the female ones now bore untimely pregnancies.
ASUU had embarked on a four-week warning strike on February 14 to press home its demands, with the prominent ones being the renegotiation of the ASUU/FG 2009 agreement and the sustainability of the university autonomy by deploying UTAS to replace the government’s “imposed” (IPPIS).
Other demands include the release of the reports of visitation panels to federal universities, distortions in salary payment challenges, funding for revitalization of public universities, earned academic allowance, poor funding of state universities and promotion arrears.
On March 14, the association extended the strike action by another two months to afford the government more time to address all of its demands.
The union in a statement by its President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke on Monday said it would be rolling over the ongoing strike for another 12 weeks.
