Nkrumah Bankong-Obi/Lafia
Student associations and youth groups say they have no plans to join the proposed nationwide protest against bad governance.
The groups said they have tremendous confidence in the Governor Sule administration at the state level and the President Bola Tinubu government at the centre to turn the state and nation’s fortune round, regardless of the prevailing difficult circumstances.
This was made known at a roundtable organised by the office of the Senior Special Assistant to Governor Abdullahi Sule on Youths and Student Affairs.
The SSA on Youths and Students Affairs, Shuaibu Sani, who convened the meeting tagged Youths and Students’ Engagement gave an overview of the of the engagement, noting that the governor has created over 8,000 jobs, regularized the appointment of casual workers at the Nasarawa State House of Assembly and has provided a conducive environment for learning in the tertiary institutions in the state.
He also said the administration of Governor Sule has provided palliatives and continued to do so, across the state.
“The achievements of Governor Sule in the area of student welfare cannot be wished away,” he said, noting that there may have been policies and programmes of the various levels of government that may have caused discomfort which was the reason for the engagement- to provide an avenue for people to contribute to finding solutions to the problems identified.
Responding on behalf of all youths in the state, Ja’afaru Loko, the Chairman of the National Youth Council of Nigeria, NYCN, Nasarawa State chapter said young people in Nasarawa State would not participate in the protest because heckling does not solve any problems, he said the best option is to find solutions to challenges through dialogue.
“Protests, demonstrations and uprisings have never proffered solutions to situations like this in the past and only dialogue can help in tackling the current challenges,” he said, calling on the youths to remain peaceful and continue to be ambassadors of peace as they have been known.
Loko accused some elites in the state of using some students to foment trouble. To this, he said the leadership of the unions were focused and they wouldn’t allow that to happen at time around.
He also recalled that during the last nationwide Endsars protests, thugs were brought in from outside the state to protest.
He therefore called on security agencies to screen anyone protesting in the state because they might not be bonafide residents of Nasarawa State.
In his remarks, Haruna Ibrahim Chairman of the Joint Campuses of the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, Nasarawa State said the students had benefitted from the State government, citing the stipends and bursary paid to students, accreditation of courses in the institutions of learning, efforts to eradicate drug abuse, cultism and other vices in the campuses.
