NANS Denies Collecting 150m From The Presidency
From yesterday been 3rd of January 2019, they have been trends of various allegations that have surfaced after the National Association of Nigerian Students meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari.
The Public Relations Officer of National Association of Nigerian Student (NANS) by name Mr. Adeyemi Amoo have on behalf of NANS denied the allegation that NANS received a bribe of 150 million Naira as alleged by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
We will recall that NANS held a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari on 3rd January 2019. After the meeting, the media was agog with the news that NANS promised Buhari 20 million votes ahead of the 2019 Presidential election.
Many Nigerian youths were disappointed with the news but some persons did not believe the NANS President said that because they think that Mr. Danielson Akpan the National President of NANS may have been misquoted.
From what we could gather from various sources, indicates that NANS may have been appealing to President Muhammadu Buhari to resolve the ongoing industrial action going on within Nigerian educational system so that he will not lose the support of 20 million Nigerian Students.
Be that as it may, ASUU accused NANS of receiving a bribe of 150 million and in a return speech, NANS has denied the allegations through their PRO.
The PRO of NANS when addressing the matter said
“Our attention has been drawn to the purported and sponsored allegation, that NANS had been bribed by President Muhammadu Buhari with a whooping sum of N150million to protest against ASUU.
“We commend the well-meaning, intellectual and genuine civil society groups for not falling cheaply for this blackmail, as we’ve gotten informed and reliably that they’ve also been lobbied by ASUU to join them in pushing such blackmail.
“We are not surprised that this blackmail isn’t flying beyond the pseudo groups they’ve been able to arrange and mobilize with cash.
“President Muhammadu Buhari is a known person in character and style to virtually all Nigerians, even the oppositions know that Buhari will never give out such amount of money for any reason(s) that is not of national benefits or developments.”
” No doubt this propaganda might have seen the acceptance of the masses if it wasn’t targeted towards Buhari himself.”
“We thereby demanded as the major stakeholders in the sectors, to always have representatives at the meeting of ASUU with Federal Government, as this was targeted towards adding to the strength and voice of ASUU, so as to make government yield to there demands in time.”
“The Federal Government on her own side sees the request of been an observer at the negotiation table with ASUU as a welcome development.
“NANS was invited twice to the meeting of Federal Government with ASUU, ably represented by the NANS national President, Danielson Akpan, but was walked out twice by the ASUU leadership, insisting that such negotiations must not be done in the presence of younger ones.
“NANS leadership begins to wonder what reasons might be behind the blind insistence of ASUU that NANS must not observe the meeting when the Federal Government has wholeheartedly approved our attendance at such meetings.”
“At the meeting, NANS appealed to president Muhammadu Buhari to as a matter of urgency resolve the ASUU strike, for him not to lose the support of over 20million Nigerian students.
“This was the statement of the NANS president at the meeting as against the cheap blackmail that NANS has assured Buhari of mobilizing 20million votes for him.
“NANS, therefore, uses this medium to inform Nigerian students and Nigerians at large, that its leadership will not, has not and will not for any reason sell the interest and integrity of our dear organization.
We hope that the pressing issues between ASUU and FG be laid to rest and on time.