Zambia National Students’ Union (ZANASU) president Joseph Busenga says if Higher Education Minister Professor Nkandu Luo wants to abolish unions in colleges and universities, she should further propose the dissolution of Cabinet and Parliament.

In a statement, Busenga charged that Prof Luo was having vivid imagination of students bodies being militias.

“A union is a mouth piece for the students that bring about order because its not all the students that can be talking to management, parliament and cabinet as good as unions do. So if Luo wants to abolish unions she should begin with the abolishment of Cabinet and Parliament. The minister has just failed to run the ministry lamentably and she is now having vivid imagination of students bodies being militias, its a shame for a carpenter to blame his tools,” Busenge said.

He alleged that Luo was a wrong person to run the affairs of students in institutions of higher learning because she had no energy to manage students.

“We as ZANASU are of a considered view that she is in a wrong ministry and above all, she has no energy to run the ministry hence the mere conjectures. Freedom of association is a fundamental right in the Constitution and no one should take it away from any individual. Such minister are up to no good. The don’t want to support the fundamentals of democracy, painting President Lungu a bad picture. We want to appeal to members of parliament not to associate themselves with such low thinking. We are challenging the minister just to resolve student problems and not to run away,” said Busenge.

Professor Nkandu Luo recently told parliament that her ministry will soon start the consultation process that will seek to dissolve students unions because they were not necessary. She said the unions would be replaced by guilds.