BY: NewsPeddlers
Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers
Association of Nigeria, has called on the National Assembly to pass a vote of
no confidence on the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).
According to the group, the
lingering strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, which began on
February 14, has endangered the security of the country with students being out
of classrooms, PUNCH reports.
This was contained in a statement
signed by the National Coordinator, HURIWA, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, on Wednesday,
which noted that students could have been recruited to commit crimes such as
terrorism, banditry, Internet fraud, prostitution, and drug trafficking.
The
statement read in part, “We call on the National Assembly to impeach President
Muhammadu Buhari for letting the ASUU strike linger thereby endangering
national security. Everyone knows an idle hand is the devil’s workshop. This is
why it is not imaginable that some undergraduate youths would have gone into
sophisticated crimes such as kidnappings, cultism, terrorism, and drug
trafficking, amongst others.
“The government’s inability to resolve the industrial
crisis in the public universities whereby over 70 per cent of youths attend
because they are from poor backgrounds is a direct declaration of war on the
youths.
“HURIWA, therefore, urged the
Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, to be a man now that he couldn’t get his
promised presidential candidacy from the cabal in Aso Rock. He should do the
needful and etch his name on the sands of time by impeaching the President.”
The group also stated that the
All Progressives Congress-led government was not serious about ending the ASUU
strike because the children of the elite were in private institutions and the
diaspora.
Onwubiko added that the APC should settle ASUU with the
money realised from the sale of forms for the presidential primary election
where aspirants paid N100 million for nomination and expression of interest
forms.
“The APC-led government has
demonstrated nonchalance to tertiary education in public schools obviously
because the ruling class send their children to private institutions in Nigeria
and overseas.
“The APC raked in over N2.5
trillion naira from its recent presidential primary alone as over 25 aspirants
paid N100 million each. The N2.5 trillion is excluding trillions gotten from
thousands of governorship, senatorial, House of Representatives and state
Houses of Assembly aspirants.
“If the party is serious about ending the ASUU strike and
saving its President, Muhammadu Buhari, from ignoble shame, it would have given
just N1.1 trillion to ASUU to end the strike. But unfortunately, we have
shameless people in power both at the APC top echelon and the Federal
Government,” Onwubiko stated.
The group stated that it would
write to foreign embassies not to allow children of elected officials to travel
for academic purposes and urged the National Association of Nigerian Students
to shun “money-based aluta”.
“HURIWA will subsequently write
to all Western Embassies to urge them not to admit children of
governors, ministers and the President for any academic programmes in
their nations until the ASUU strike is permanently solved.
“Also,
the National Association of Nigerian Students must sustain public protests and
not cave in to intimidation and money-based aluta. They should not eat their
future like Esau,” the statement concluded.