NANS Gives Benue Govt 5-Day Ultimatum Over Two-Month Closure of Five Tertiary Institutions

The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has issued a five-day ultimatum to the Benue State Government, demanding it resolve its dispute with staff unions and reopen all closed state-owned tertiary institutions or face a mass mobilisation of students to Makurdi.

In a statement issued on Tuesday and signed by the Deputy Senate President of NANS National Headquarters, Caleb King Ogabidu, the students' body decried the continuous closure of five state-owned institutions for more than two months. The affected institutions include Benue State Polytechnic, Ugbokolo; Akperan Orshi Polytechnic, Yandev, Gboko; Akawe Torkula Polytechnic, Makurdi; Benue State College of Education, Oju; and the College of Education, Katsina-Ala.

NANS accused the state government of negligence within the education sector, describing the current situation as no longer tolerable. The association argued that education remains the bedrock of every society and should stand as the core priority of any responsible government, framing the prolonged closures as an indictment of the state's approach to its education sector.

The students' body directed the Benue State Government to immediately settle its outstanding disputes with the state chapters of the Colleges of Agriculture and Allied Institutions Staff Union (COASU) and the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), and to conclude plans for returning students to their classrooms without further delay.

According to the ultimatum, failure to reach an agreement and return students to classrooms within five working days will leave NANS with no option but to mobilise its members from across the country to Makurdi on Friday, September 25, 2026, to press home its demands. The association's national leadership directed all its structures to begin mobilising for a peaceful demonstration once the ultimatum expires without resolution.

NANS also called on Nigerian students in the affected schools to remain steadfast, assuring them that the association's leadership remains fully committed to ensuring their return to classrooms. "Fellow compatriots, it isn't news anymore that Nigerian students within Benue State have been out of school for over two months now and still counting due to an obvious negligence of education by the State government. We cannot mortgage the destinies of thousands of our students on the altar of the government's insensitivity. Education is a right, not a privilege. Aluta Continua!" the statement read.

The prolonged closure of Benue's state-owned polytechnics and colleges of education adds to a broader wave of disruptions affecting tertiary education across several Nigerian states throughout 2026, with strikes and closures tied to unresolved staff welfare disputes having similarly affected universities in Nasarawa, Imo, Plateau, Anambra, Lagos, and Ondo states in recent months. While many of those disputes have centred specifically on the non-implementation of the 2025 FGN-ASUU agreement for university lecturers, the Benue situation involves a different set of institutions and unions, ASUP and COASU, representing polytechnic and college of education staff, whose grievances with the state government have similarly gone unresolved for an extended period.

For students at the five affected Benue institutions, the closure has already meant more than two months without access to lectures, practicals, or other academic activities, a disruption NANS argues risks derailing academic calendars and delaying graduation timelines the longer it persists without government intervention. With the five-day ultimatum now in effect and a September 25 mobilisation deadline set, attention turns to whether the Benue State Government will move quickly to resolve its dispute with COASU and ASUP, or whether NANS will proceed with its threatened demonstration in Makurdi as planned.