by Laila Ibrahim 

‎President Goodluck Jonathan has assured Nigerians that subsequent governments after his administration will not have challenges in the power sector, as he was doing everything possible to ensure that the sector becomes stable.

While recieving a delegation of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), led by Senior Special Assistant on Youth Affairs, Jude Imagwe and NANS President, Yinka Gbadebo; Jonathan said that his administration was working to return Nigerian universities to the top ranks, by ensuring that they are rated among the top 500 in the world.

“We want to return our universities to the winning ways, our ‎universities must be strengthened, our universities must have to be returned to the top….our universities must not just be big in population but top in the quality. ‎We want our universities to be among the top rated in the world. Is not easy to be at top, there is no reason why Nigerian universities cannot be among the top 500 in the world. But we must work hard…as a leading black nation in the world,we must get there, that’s the only way we can reshape, rebuild our nation that our children will be proud of”.

The president commended NANS for their role in the past which he described as patriotic, to stabilise crisis in the educational sector especially in the polytechnics.

Speaking on the last strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) for six months, the president said he was saddened because the union did so based on the document produced by his administration to address the decay in the tertiary institutions in the country.

“ASUU should go on strike if nothing is going well in the country there is no problem with that but when you go on strike based on documents we produced to address the decay in institutions, then it is worrisome.

“ASUU shouldn’t have gone on strike for six months on that, if I wanted to cover up for government I wouldn’t have exposed that document to the public,” he said.

The students association who decorated the president as the Grand Commander of Nigerian Students (GCNS), also used the occasion to appeal to President Jonathan to bridge the gap between HND holders and B.Sc ‎holders in the country.

In attendance of the session were 10 former NANS presidents; ‎eight former NANS senate presidents; Student Union Presidents in universities, polytechnics, monotechnics and colleges of education.

Emmanuel Chidiogo