The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has directed all its structures and organs to block all federal roads to protest against the lingering closure of public universities.
This is as a result of the extension of the strike action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) by 12 weeks.
The union asked the students to ensure the roads remain blocked every day for at least three hours until the Federal Government grants the demands of university lecturers.
Victor Ezenagu, NANS Public Relations Officer, in an interview on Channels TV Sunrise Daily on Tuesday, declared the mass action tagged ‘Operation Test Run’.
He said: “We are determined to ensuring that our campuses are reopened and as such, the instruction has gone out to all the 36 states and the FCT calling on all our structures to begin (the mass action) immediately, starting from today, by barricading and blocking every federal road, every road leading to the airports, and ensuring they remain on the street for at least three hours every day until the Federal Government does something as regards to settling their impasse with ASUU for us to return to our campuses,”
The student body stressed that ‘Operation Test Run’ would be a tip of the iceberg, adding that it would totally shut down the Senate meeting/pre-convention on Saturday, May 14.
NANS said that as long as the industrial action lingers, students will continue to occupy roads leading to airports and disrupt political parties’ forthcoming conventions.
“There shall be no primaries, there shall be no political activities if our future is not resolved, if our future is not decided well, if the issue concerning the Nigerian students is not resolved, because we cannot be talking about next elections, we should be talking about next generation.
“If we are only concerned about elections, then what happens to the next generation? Education is the only thing that can ensure and ascertain the existence of Nigeria and make Nigeria a better place. We cannot sit back and watch our fathers who are almost in their dying age toy with our future; we will not allow that.
“There shall be no primaries, there shall be no political activities in Nigeria except the ASUU strike is resolved. We are not deterred, we are formidable; we are coming to shock Nigerians, we are coming to shock the government, we are coming to shock everybody”
