Students storm Ooni’s programme in Osun, protest ASUU strike

Students, on Saturday, stormed the venue for a programme, Royal African Young Leadership Forum, an initiative founded by the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi. The students protested the lingering strike action of the Academic Staff Union of Universities.

The programme was designed to award young Nigerians and youths with outstanding leadership roles.

The programme, which had popular #ENDSARS activist, Rinu Oduala, Governor Akeredolu’s son, Babajide Akeredolu, and 98 others as nominees for the awards, was held at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, where the students of the institution stormed the hall, displaying placards and chorusing “End ASUU Strike!” continuously.

It was gathered that the students had come to the venue with the expectation of the presence of the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, with the same aim of expressing their displeasure with the continued closure of schools over the strike action of staff unions across public institutions in the country.

The Vice President had visited Osogbo, the state capital on Friday as part of his consultations ahead of the 2023 presidential election.

One of the students, who had gathered under the aegis of Fund education Campaign and Concerned Nigerian Students, Omowumi Ewatee, said, “We came to protest the strike, the Vice president is part of the problems of the strike.”

“They cannot be coming to our school that is closed due to strike and be doing political publicity in the same school,” she said.

ASUU had begun its strike action on February 14 over claims that the Federal Government had failed to honour the agreement it had with the lecturers on the revitalisation of the university system, and payment of Earned Academic Allowance, among others.