ERC Salutes ASUU for Championing the
Struggle to Save the Public University System from Collapse
The Education Rights Campaign (ERC)
warmly welcomes the leadership and members of the Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU) to this year's edition of the biennial National Delegate
Conference of the union.
No doubt ASUU has demonstrated how the
rest of the oppressed masses of this country should organize to fight for their
rights. Evidence of this is the ASUU strike of 2013 that forced the Federal
Government to bow to the power of struggle by agreeing even if partially to
begin to take seriously its responsibility to the funding of the public
university system.
However, the "victory" of the
2013 strike is merely a dress rehearsal for bigger battles to save public
education. The 200 billion Naira is not only too little, without a
corresponding increase in government overall budgetary allocation to education,
the N200 billion may have no real impact in repositioning the public University
system. Unfortunately, the 2014 budget as usual allocated a paltry sum well
below the UNESCO 26% benchmark reflecting that government mindset to underfund
public education has not fundamentally changed.
Not only this. Today fees are being
hiked astronomically beyond what students from poor working class background
can afford. Lagos State University (LASU) and Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU)
are the latest examples of this agenda to price education out of the reach of
the poor. We appeal for the support and solidarity of ASUU to resist these
criminal policies of fee hike. If these hikes succeed, the campaign for the
adequate funding of public education will suffer a general setback. This is
aside the threat to jobs of academic and non-academic staff that astronomical
fee hike constitutes as the situation in LASU now clearly demonstrates.
As resistance is growing in the
education sector against the anti-poor policies of the government, attempts are
being made to cause disaffection and disunity. The ERC believes that the
interests of students, parents and education workers (academic and
non-academic) in the Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education are
the same. We want the repositioning of not just one sub-sector but of all
aspects of our education sector.
This is why we urge ASUU to come out
frontally to support the strike and demands of members of the Academic Staff
Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) and the Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union
(COEASU) who have been on strike for months now. This solidarity is vital as a
first step to begin to unite the workers and students in the education sector
against the government.
We urge ASUU to follow this up with an
"EDUCATION SUMMIT" which should be a MASS ASSEMBLY to which delegates
of sister unions in the Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education
will be invited as well as students, parents, NUT, trade unions, civil society
organizations and all those concerned about the crisis of public education. We
propose that the central aim of the summit should be to draw up proposals for
repositioning the sector and also to formulate a program and action plan for a
joint campaign to fight to save public education from collapse.
As Nigeria is enmeshed in numerous
socio-economic, ethnic and religious crisis of various dimension, there is
urgent need for a consistent voice for the working class and poor masses and an
alternative political platform to liberate Nigeria from capitalism. Presently
the bureaucratic leadership of the labour movement has capitulated to the
neo-liberal agenda capitalist ruling elite on all fronts. Meanwhile none of the
problems afflicting the working class, youth and poor masses of Nigeria can be
resolved under capitalism.
The Boko Haram insurgency for instance
cannot be ended without putting to an end the condition of mass poverty and
joblessness in the midst of abundance which fuels discontent and ultimately
violence.
We wish to boldly state that imperialist
intervention will fail to end Boko Haram insurgency. As examples from
Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya clearly illustrate, imperialist intervention will
only deepen the crisis further. This is because it is the capitalist-engendered
crisis of poverty in the midst of abundance that is responsible for Boko Haram
insurgency in the first place. It is only by enthroning a workers and poor
peoples' government armed with socialist policies that we can begin to solve
this crisis.
As a fighting union that people look up
to, ASUU has a duty and responsibility to offer a way out for all those who are
looking for solutions to the Nation's woes. Every additional day the capitalist
ruling elite remain in power is a prolongation of the condition of mass misery
in the midst of plenty. We need a genuine political party that can represent the
interests of the working class and poor and through which we can fight to take
power from the corrupt ruling elite.
Already the Democratic Socialist
Movement (DSM) to which the ERC is affiliated has taken steps in this direction
by forming the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) and presently is seeking
registration from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). We call
for the support and collaboration of members of ASUU in the struggle to
liberate Nigeria from the clutches of capitalism and imperialism.
Issued by the EDUCATION RIGHTS CAMPAIGN (ERC) - a
platform formed by the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM). Tel: 07033697259, 07066249160
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