The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Kwara chapter, yesterday said the ongoing polytechnic lecturers' strike is destructive and pleaded with the federal government "to have effective and meaningful dialogue with the lecturers".

Chairman of NANS convention committee, Comrade Akorede Shakir, made the plea during a press conference on the just concluded convention of the association in Ilorin.

The association also called on the state government to immediately appoint a Special Adviser on Students' Affairs, saying, "the vacuum is seriously affecting our life".

For the past 10 months, lecturers of polytechnic under the aegis of Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) have been on strike over certain demands from government while both parties have yet to reach a compromise.

In Kwara State, only Federal Polytechnic, Offa is affected. It would be recalled that students of the polytechnic early this year protested the long drawn strike, stopping vehicular movement along the ever-busy Ilorin/Oshogbo/Offa high way.

The students' leader urged the parties to urgently resolve their issues and call off the strike.