A human rights campaigner and lawyer, Mr Bamidele Aturu, on Tuesday urged that the proposed national conference should not be organised with state resources.
Aturu made the statement at a news conference in Lagos.
He advised that groups and nationalities interested in participation should sponsor themselves to make the conference genuine.
“It is not a per diem-based conference where people jostle for allowances.
“Organisations, groups and ethnic nationalities that want to participate in a genuine national conference must fund themselves,” he said.
He urged that decisions taken at the conference should not be altered or amendment.
According to him, the conference will only be meaningful if it facilitates job creation, improved access to education and equal opportunities for Nigerians.
He appealed to the Federal Government to accede to the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to end the union‘s lingering strike.
Aturu said that the lecturers’ strike was a patriotic action aimed at revamping Nigeria’s public universities.
He said: “Nigerians should thank ASUU for the strike. What it is doing is legitimate and patriotic.
“ASUU is demanding for increased funding for our universities to address the decay in infrastructure”.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that ASUU had on July 1 embarked on strike to protest Federal Government’s non-implementation of an agreement it entered into with the union in 2009. (NAN)
