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The Socio-Economic Rights Accountability Project and other education rights groups, such as the Reform Education Nigeria and Education Rights Campaign, have knocked the regime of the President Muhammadu Buhari, over the prolonged shutdown of academic activities in the nation’s tertiary institutions.
The strike declared by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) entered its 140th day on Monday (today), while the strike declared by the Joint Action Committee of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Education and other Allied Institutions, which began on March 25, 2022 also entered the 68th day today.
While the National Executive Council of Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics is currently meeting in Jigawa State after calling off a two-week warning strike, the Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union just commenced a two-month strike.
In a statement made available to journalists on Sunday, SERAP’s Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, noted that the government’s failure to meet ASUU’s demands, implement the agreement it had with the union and satisfactorily resolve the issues, has kept poor Nigerian children at home while the children of the country’s politicians attend private schools.
Oluwadare said, “Inequalities in education have a rolling effect, leading to even more and continued inequalities in the future.
“Apart from being a right in itself, the right to education is also an enabling right. Education creates the voice through which rights can be claimed and protected, and without education, people lack the capacity to achieve valuable functioning as part of the living.
“If people have access to education, they can develop the skills, capacity and confidence to secure other rights. Education gives people the ability to access information detailing the range of rights that they hold together with the government’s obligations.” the group said.