Non-teaching workers of public universities have expressed worry about the growing rate of insecurity in tertiary institutions across the country.
The workers, under the aegis of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), expressed the fear that nobody, including its members, is safe anymore.
They urged the Federal Government to approve the use of guns for the security of campuses to protect their workers and students.
SSANU spoke through its National President Mohammed Haruna after its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja at the weekend.
Haruna noted that granting licences to security guards would help established security agencies, who are overwhelmed by different security challenges, such as banditry, kidnapping, and other criminalities ravaging the country, to protect the higher institutions.
SSANU’s concern came a few hours after the students and workers of Greenfield University in Kaduna, a private university, regained their freedom from their abductors after paying N180 million and giving out 10 motorcycles as ransom.
He said: “We are here to deliberate on a wide range of issues. Topmost among those issues is the security of our members who work in the university environment. Our members can’t travel freely, they can’t move around with ease. Anytime they do so, they get kidnapped. This is unacceptable!
“We are calling on the Federal Government to license our security men on campuses who are our members, train and re-train them from time to time and monitor them. By doing this, security challenges in our institutions will reduce.”
