Police stop ASUU protest in Bayelsa

WorldStage Newsonline-- The police on Tuesday stopped street protests organised by the Niger Delta University's chapter of
the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.
The Commissioner of Police in the state, Mr. Hilary Opara, issued an order preventing any form of street protest but
allowed the aggrieved university lecturers to hold their protest within the university’s Law Faculty in Yenagoa.
The placard-carrying lecturers later converted their protest to a prayer session where they prayed against all the spirits that
prevented the government from honouring an agreement.
The lecturers also sought divine intervention on all the cases of blackmail and intimidation against the union by the Federal
Government.
Chairman of ASUU-NDU, Beke Sese, who addressed the rally disclosed that the Chief Security Officer (CSO) to Governor
Seriake Dickson interrogated him few hours to the planned protest.
Some of the placards displayed by the lecturers bore messages such as, “Not every child can go to Ghana to study”,
“Agreement is Agreement”, “Government save our universities”, “Poor people’s children need universities”, “Can your child
afford to go to Ghana and Malaysia, if no then join ASUU to better our universities”.
Sese said the 17-week old strike was being sustained by ASUU’s collective resolve to stem the downward trend government
had subjected public education to.
He said the government was “systematically destroying public education through mindless neglect and near total
abandonment”.
He also observed that some opposition politicians had capitalised on the strike to cast aspersions on the government and
thereby trivialising ASUU’s genuine struggle.
Sese said ASUU struggles had been driven by legitimate causes rather than regional, ethnic or any other political
considerations.
He said the on-going strike has presented the government a golden opportunity to make history by revitalising public
universities in Nigeria.
“The “no fund” refrain being proclaimed by government simply reflects a grand design to frustrate the 2009 agreement and
all other procedures related to it. This is most unfortunate.
“Implement fully the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement which offers a veritable road-map towards reversing the decay in the
university system and silence your opposition.
"We are being accused of politicizing the ongoing strike, probably because the current ASUU President is from Northern
Nigeria, while we have a South-South President at the helm of affairs in the country.
"Nothing can be farther from the truth. Please recall that Prof. Jega was once ASUU President, when Gen. Babagida was
ruling Nigeria. They were both from the same Northern region. Dr. Dipo Fasina was also ASUU President during General
Olusegun Obasanjo's first tenure as President of Nigeria.
"Again they were from same western region. The Union also embarked on protracted struggle. We wish to put it on record
that as a union whose members constitute the intellectual cream of society, our struggle has been driven by purely
legitimate causes, rather than regional, ethnic or any other consideration.
"We rather wish to implore this government to see this as a golden opportunity to make history by commencing the process
of revitalizing Nigerian public university to such unprecedented height never before attained by any previous administration.
"Implement fully, the 2009 FG/ASUU agreement which offers a veritable road-map toward reversing the decay in the
university system and silence your opposition."