From News Editor
The Senior Special Assistant on Students’ Engagements to the President, Sunday Asefon, has assured the students that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will take necessary steps to eliminate the vestiges of spiraling out-of-school children rattling the Nigerian education sector.
The Presidential aide, said Tinubu was incurably committed to ridding the nation of the cankerworm of unrests in tertiary institutions that often lead to haphazard school calendars having a toll on the standard of education and demeaning Nigerian institutions on webometric ranking.
Asefon gave the assurance, on Monday, in Ado Ekiti, at the commencement of a two-day leadership training organised by his office for students’ union leaders in the southwest region, with the theme: ‘Building Responsible Leaders for National Development’.
Asefon asserted that the training was aimed at imbuing the students’ leaders with the right skills to manage frictions they have with the school managements for steady, unhindered and progressive school calendars to be attainable.
The Presidential aide added that Tinubu as a student and youth- friendly leader, was determined to hand over power to the youthful generation, saying there was a need for such future leaders to be trained in leadership skills for the nation to have a prosperous and blossoming future.
He said Tinubu remains the most committed leader in Nigerian history in terms of investments in education system, describing the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) codenamed Students’ Loan as a game changer that will obliterate school dropouts on account of financial incapacitation.
“President Tinubu promised that he will stop the cases of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) frequent strikes, and he started achieving this by paying their nine months withheld salaries and by getting them off the IPPIS payroll. That had helped in settling their grievances.
“The tenures of former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari were riddled with ASUU strikes. There wasn’t any year all the unions in the university didn’t go on strike. But President Tinubu has spent one year and three months in office, no case of national strike has been recorded.
“The NELFUND looked impossible in the beginning, but students from poor backgrounds are now having access to the funds in our federal and state tertiary institutions. Let me assure you that the increasing rate of out -of -school children and unrests on our campuses will be eliminated under the present government”.
On the kernel of the training, Asefon said it was conceptualised to promote dialogue between the students’ leadership and managements, to foster robust relationships that can promote learning and academic standard on campuses.
Asefon saluted the students’ population across the country for shunning the endbadgovernance protests, he said ended in crisis and fiasco, saying this signposted respect and confidence vote for the personality of President Tinubu and his leadership.
“Protest is good, but it can only be used when the person you are talking to is not ready to listen. But I am assuring you that President Tinubu will always listen to the students on whatever grievances they have.
“The students’ population decided to shun the protests as a mark of respect they have for President Tinubu, because he has done enough for students through Tertiary Education Trust Fund(Tetfund). His plan is to ensure that students are carried along in decision making process and that was why he created my office to interface with them”.
In his submission, the Commissioner for Youth Development in Ekiti State, Mr. Gold Adedayo, described investment in education as the most potent weapon to rid the nation of poverty and criminalities, boasting that Tinubu’s leadership has not failed in this regard.
A former students’ Union Leader at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Mr. Oluwole Moneyin, said dialogue remains the best instrument to be deployed to settle differences on campuses by students, saying there must be a paradigm shift now that military regime had ceased to exist in Nigeria.
