The National Youth Leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Muhammed Kadade Suleiman, has commended the leadership of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) led by its President, Comrade Usman Umar Barambu for their thoughtful mode of engaging President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR on the issue of the exponential increase in cost of tuition fees in Nigerian Universities.
In a statement in Abuja while reacting to the Association’s letter addressed to the President calling for his “FATHERLY INTERVENTION ON SCHOOL FEES INCREMENT IN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS,” he stated that, “at the moment, all hands are expected to be on deck to salvage current state of tertiary institutions in the country.
“Increasing tuition fees when many are only just emerging from an economically challenging year does not help anyone. Rather, it seeks to further marginalize the students and their parents.”
“Therefore, the resort to a more constructive and amicable engagement by making the President see reason is truly commendable.
“NANS is indeed one of the most important organisations as it is saddled with the very vital responsibility of protecting the rights of students vis-a-vis its advocacy for good governance, social justice and development.
“It is our fervent hope and prayer that the President, will give a listening ear to these very important stakeholders in the nation’s development strides. NANS as a body is responsible to almost fifty million members and we have resolved to give them all necessary support and encouragement,” the statement read.
Speaking further, Prince Kadade recalled that the year 2022 was a challenging year for students of the nation’s tertiary institutions.
“While Universities around the world were working round-the-clock to make up for the impact of COVID-19 and the lock-down that occasioned it; the lockdown was supposed to mark a watershed moment in tertiary institutions across the world as remote classes and online learning is now global best practice,” he said.
However, it will be recalled that the Academic Staff Union of Universities(ASUU) embarked on an eight (8) months strike in early 2022 protesting consistent failure to implement agreements reached with the Federal Government.
The National Youth Leader stated that it is not an achievement worthy of noting that tertiary institution students’ have been at home for about 630 days since 2015. Put together, that is almost two years of learning time lost.
