Prof Ishaq, Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has said that continuous strikes by unions in Nigerian tertiary institutions are causing irreparable damage to the country’s educational system.
In a separate event, the leadership of the National Association of Nigeria Students (NANS) explained why the group has called a halt to nationwide protests in response to the Academic Staff Union of Universities’ strike.
Oloyede made the remarks yesterday in Ilorin, the capital of Kwara State, when JAMB, in collaboration with Project Cure, a US-based organisation, presented a multi-billion naira medical equipment to the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH) for improved health care delivery in the country.
Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), and Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) members are currently on strike. According to Oloyede, the strike is pointless.
“While acknowledging that the primary responsibility for reasonable (even if insufficient) funding of public health and education institutions lies with the proprietors—the government,” he continued, “may I take this opportunity to call on employers and university-based labour unions to appreciate the irreparable damage of incessant strikes on not only the students but also the nation.”
Oloyede stated that the board’s intervention in the area of health care delivery was to support the government’s efforts to address the massive medical infrastructural gap. He also stated that JAMB would continue to trim its expenses through prudent management, adoption of relevant cost-saving technology, and other efficiency-strategies to free up resources to support major stakeholders such as tertiary health and educational institutions in order to uplift the health sector.
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The hospital equipment, he said, was for 12 beneficiaries’ health facilities across the country’s six geopolitical zones.
An anglepoise lamp, ventilator, consumables, mattress, OG couch, gynaecology chair, treatment table, treadmill machine, crutches, ICU beds, urinary catheters, defibrillator machines, laparoscopy machines, needle and syringes, wheelchairs, Oxygen concentrator, suction machines, endoscopy machines, and other items are among the equipment.
NANS accused the Federal Government of sabotaging genuine protests to compel lecturers to reopen public universities while explaining why it had suspended its nationwide protests over the ongoing ASUU strike.
ASUU began a one-month strike on February 14, which was extended to two months later.
“In the area of the ASUU strike,” said NANS Senate President Chuks Okafor in a statement on Friday. We’ve tried our hardest to communicate with government agencies, but we can only lead the horse to the water, not force it. But, as Nigerian student leaders, we will continue to communicate with the government and ASUU leadership to ensure that the strike is called off as soon as possible.”
Since the 9th of May, 2022, Okafor has expressed concern about INEC’s inability to obey the Supreme Court judgement of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) leadership.
The student body demanded that INEC Chairman Prof Mahmood Yakubu implement the Supreme Court’s ruling on APGA leadership without delay, or face mass protests.
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