POLITICS DIGEST CVR SERIES: Amidst ASUU Strike, over 4.5m Students Register to Vote in 2023
By Kabir Akintayo
There are strong indications that Nigerian undergraduates who have been forced to stay at home by the unending Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike have decided to make a statement in next year’s general elections by participating en masse in the just concluded Continuous Voters Registration (CVR).
The university teachers have been on strike since February 14 due to a disagreement with the federal government over their payment platform, renegotiation of 2009 agreement, outstanding allowances, university autonomy, proliferation of new universities, among other issues.
Other higher institutions’ unions have also embarked on similar industrial actions which have worsened the country’s education crises.
While efforts by well-meaning Nigerians to make the lecturers return to the classrooms have fallen on deaf ears, the students have become restless and angry with the system which they say is truncating their future.
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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had, against popular clamour, closed the registration on July 31, citing certain restrictions in the 2022 Electoral Act and the need to put its house in order and produce new Permanent Voter Cards in time for the general elections scheduled for February 2023.
POLITICS DIGEST observed that out of the 12,298, 944 total new registrants announced by INEC, a whooping 4,501,595 of them were students, which makes it 38 percent of the entire figure.
This also means that a total of 8,805,120 students are now on INEC register and they have a chance to vote in February next year.
POLITICS DIGEST crew observed that the major motivation of students turning out en masse for the CVR exercise is to register their displeasure with the Establishment, through the ballot.
A cross section of undergraduates who spoke to our correspondent said their major motivation is to vote for leaders who have the interest of students at heart.
A student of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Habeeb Ahmed, said this to our correspondent: “Already, we have all the time in this world to register for the voter’s cards since our lecturers have been on strike for more than five months now. We decided to make use of our free time to partake in the process. All of us are angry, we have spent more than five months at home now, even our parents are frustrated.”
