February 25th: NANS Asked FG To Close Down University

The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has requested that the Federal Government order the closure of all tertiary institutions in order to make it convenient for students to obtain their permanent voter cards and then vote in the elections on February 25.

This was disclosed by NANS in a statement delivered to The PUNCH on Sunday by its Vice President for External Affairs, Akintoye Afeez.

NANS made the statement in response to the extension of the PVC collecting deadline and in view of the upcoming general election, saying that the FG “should immediately close all tertiary institutions temporarily to afford students the opportunity to collect their PVCs from their local government areas and vote in the forthcoming elections.”

According to Afeez, “In time past, the lack of flexibility of the Independent National Electoral Commission and the management of tertiary institutions have made it difficult and almost impossible for students to participate in the electoral process.

“The case is now different for the 2023 elections. This is because, during the continuous voter registration exercise, students were in their various homes due to the prolonged Academic Staff Union of Universities’ strike and about four million (according to statistics) of us registered newly for our PVCs.

“Now that we have registered for our PVCs and they have been processed, our tertiary institutions are not considering academic breaks for students during the general election, despite knowing that most students registered outside their campuses.”

The apex student organization requested that the Federal Government order the National Universities Commission, the National Board for Technical Education, and the National Commission for Colleges of Education, all of which are under the Federal Ministry of Education, to: “shut all tertiary institutions temporarily until after the general election to allow the Nigerian students (who constitute 40.8 per cent of the newly registered voters across the 774 local government areas of Nigeria) have access to their PVCs and vote for the candidates of their choice in fulfillment of their civic responsibility as patriotic citizens of Nigeria.”