Again, polytechnic students protest in Lagos Students of Yaba College of Technology and members of Education Rights Campaign (ERC), in solidarity with all polytechnic institutions nationwide, took to the streets of Lagos, on Tuesday, to protest the prolonged strike embarked upon by polytechnic lecturers. The students, in interviews with the Nigerian Tribune, once again called on the Federal Government to intervene and accede to the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), which they said were for the good of the technical arm of Nigeria’s education system. The protest, which commenced at Yaba and ended at Maryland and caused many hours of traffic gridlock, according to the ERC deputy coordinator, Lateef Adams, was meant to give support to polytechnic students who had been at home since October 2013 when the strike began. “We joined the students to protest in order to compel the Federal Government to end ASUP strike and reach agreement with the lecturers,” he said. Adams also flayed the government for the poor attention it was giving the crisis in Nigerian polytechnics nationwide. During the protest, which disrupted traffic at Yaba, Onipanu and Maryland areas of Lagos, the students chanted protest songs.” According to Dayo Adeleke of Yabatech: “The Federal Government is toying with our future. Since nobody is speaking for us, we have decided to speak for ourselves. We want to know why the Federal Government is neglecting us. “We should not be spending more time at home than in school. We want our voices to be heard and something done urgently concerning our plight.” Addressing the students, chairman, Yaba Local Council Development Area, Mr Jide Jimoh, charged the Federal Government to learn from the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government in the South-West on youth development. Blaming the Federal Government for poor youth development in the country, the chairman, represented by the Secretary to the Council, Mr Doyin Rojaye, said, “what we are experiencing now is corruption and insecurity which are not adding value to the country.”
Posted on: Wed, 09 Apr 2014 10:01:03 +0000
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