The Students Union Government (SUG) President of the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU) has said that the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) will shut down the country if the strike embarked on by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) continues.

The ATBU SUG president, Comrade Usman Abubakar was speaking at a press conference organized by a NorthEast zone of NANS in Bauchi on Friday.

He lamented that the strike would deny students who are close to the age of 30 from experiencing NYSC because of the law that bars graduates who are over 30 years from participating in the scheme.

“The federal government and ASUU are clearly not thinking about how this strike will have direct impact of the lives of students. Most people whose ages is close to 30 are at the risk of not going for NYSC.

“Even those who might scale through to NYSC will also be denied job opportunities because by the time they graduate, they will be older than the 26 or 27 years that banks and other firms require for graduate employment.

“The annoying thing is that most of the people (FG and ASUU) fighting do not have their children in our schools, federal government and ASUU must find a way to end this strike has lasted for seven months, else, we will shut down this country,” he said.

Earlier, the Coordinator of NANS ZONE-E, Alhassan Adam, had appealed to ASUU to obey the court order and return to class so that students can pursue their dreams.(Saturday Vanguard)