The National Association of University Students (NAUS) has called on the Inspection General of Police (IGP), Usman Alkali Baba, to immediately withdraw police operatives attached to dignitaries across the country and redeploy them to various institutions of learning to protect the lives of students.
The student body lamented the incessant attacks on university campuses across the country by bandits, saying students now live in constant fear of being kidnapped or worse still, killed in a bid to be educated.
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The National President of the association, Comrade Ijegalu Felix, stated this at a press conference held on Sunday after the election of the new executive members of the association in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
He queried, “Of what use are policemen to VIPs if the lives of students who are the future leaders of this country continue to be in danger?”
Felix called on President Muhammadu Buhari to find lasting solutions to the insecurity challenges in the country, saying “Nigerian students are suffering, continuously having a lot of disturbances in our academic calendar.”
His words: “It is also imperative for us to register our displeasure at the disturbing and incessant attacks on students of tertiary institutions in their various campuses across the nation by bandits, kidnappers and marauding criminal herdsmen.
“It is most worrisome and unfortunate that in Nigeria today, hardly a day will go by without the news of an attack on our institutions of learning, with students, lecturers and other staff members being kidnapped or killed by suspected bandits or criminal herdsmen.
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“This has not only put the lives of our students in danger, but it is also destroying our already crisis-ridden educational sector.
“We hereby call on the President Muhammadu Buhari’s led Federal government to find lasting solutions to the insecurity challenges in the country otherwise we may be forced to take laws into our hands.
“We also called on the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Usman Alkali Baba, to immediately withdraw police personnel attached to VIPs across the country, with a view to redeploying them to our various institutions of learning to protect the lives of our students.”
Felix also called on the Federal Government to, as a matter of urgency, address the demands of members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to avert another imminent strike.
“It is appalling and most embarrassing that lecturers have to go on strike for them to be taken seriously by the Federal government. Most disappointing is that, after three months of suspending a nine-month-old strike, the government has failed to fulfil promises made to the union.
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“This government has once again shown its ineptitude and lack of sympathy to the plights of Nigerian students who have become puns in the game of power between the government and ASUU”, he lamented.
He, therefore, urged the Federal Government to show commitment to reviving the education sector by addressing some, if not all of the issues raised by ASUU.
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