Vigilance is Now Required From LASU Students and Workers To Ensure That This Victory is Permanent
11/08/2014
Press Statement
The
Education Rights Campaign (ERC) wholeheartedly welcomes the reversal of the
astronomically hiked fees of the Lagos State University (LASU) by Governor
Babatunde Raji Fashola, the Governor of Lagos State. The Governor made this
known at the 19th convocation ceremony of the University held on Thursday 7
August 2014.
However
eternal vigilance is now required from LASU students and workers to ensure that
this victory is permanent. This is important because the experience of Okada
riders and other oppressed masses in Lagos is instructive to note that the
Lagos State APC-led government is a viciously anti-poor government that can
grant concessions in the run-up to elections only to withdraw them once they
have comfortably returned to the saddle.
Equally
instructive is the fact that right at the convocation ceremony where Governor
Fashola announced reversal of the fees, protesting members of the Senior Staff
Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) who were demanding improvement in
their working condtions were teargassed. This should be a warning to all LASU
students that regardless of the reversal, the anti-poor mentality and mindset
of the Lagos State government remains unchanged. The ERC therefore calls on
students to actively support the members of SSANU and every other unions
agitating for improvement in their conditions because without these unions'
solidarity, the struggle for reversal of the fees would not have been won.
In any
case the ERC considers the decision of the Lagos State Government to reverse
the fees as a vindication of our uncompromising demand for immediate and
unconditional reversal of the anti-poor fees. This was not an easy or
benevolent decision on the part of the Lagos State government. The State
government was forced to concede by an unrelenting and prolonged mass struggle
which saw many students brutalised, arrested and detained. Indeed left to
Governor Fashola and as he made clear on many occasions, the fee hike was a
forgone conclusion.
However as
the ERC often told the students of LASU, no mountain is immovable once the
people are resolved and resolute to move it. Not for one moment did the ERC
lose hope that it was possible to win total reversal of the fees. Our hope and
enthusiasm was based on the complete unpopularity of the fee hike among
Lagosians and Nigerians as well as our undying faith in the capacity of working
people and students to change their conditions if they so will it. Indeed to
show the power of the working class, the strikes of the Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU) LASU chapter and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian
Universities (SSANU) LASU chapter were additional pressures that compelled the
government to concede. This is why the ERC often canvasses for the unity of
education workers and students to struggle for their rights.
From
September 2011 when the anti-poor Lagos State government jerked up the fees of
LASU from N25,000 to betweem N193,750 to N348,750, the ERC had been playing
frontline roles in campaigning for the reversal of the fees. However in January
2014 in the aftermath of a protest by 1, 292 students who were denied access to
write examinations due to inability to pay the criminally high fees, the ERC
played a pivotal role in launching a broad platform called #SaveLASU Campaign
Movement which comprised the Lagos State University Students Union (LASUSU),
National Union of Lagos State Students (NULASS) and radical students of the
University.
It was
under the #SaveLASU campaign with ERC playing a leading role that the struggle
to reverse the fees began. A protest was held to the State House of Assembly on
Tuesday 18 February 2014. Also a public symposium was held which had the likes
of Barrister Mohammed Fawehinmi as a lead speaker. Also a roaring social media
under the hastag #SaveLASU was launched all of which combined to force the
issue of the fee hike to the frontburner such that the State government could
not ignore the issue much longer especially in the run-up to the 2015 general
elections.
No matter
how the Lagos State government may want to present its decision to reverse the
fees, it is obvious that this is a crushing defeat for the government and the
All Progressive Congress (APC) and their cynical policy of playing
"progressive" while implementing rightwing and anti-poor policies.
Indeed the
public needs to remember that this present victory was heralded by series of
small retreats by the State government. After the ERC and #SaveLASU had
succeeded in forcing to the frontburner the issue of fee hike as the central
cause of the militant students protest of January 22 and 23, 2014, the State
government decided to drop its agenda to victimise students and charge
reparation fees. Instead the government announced the release of a sum of
N51million Naira to repair all University properties allegedly damaged during
the protest. That was the first victory. The second victory came much later on
Wednesday June 11 2014 when the State government agreed to reduction of the
fees ranging from 34% to 60%.
However
despite all these concessions, the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) and the
#SaveLASU Campaign Movement remained resolute on the demand for total and
unconditional reversal of the fees. We believed that the starting point for
LASU to become affordable for all was for the criminally hiked fees to be
reversed completely without conditons. We also believed that Nigeria and indeed
Lagos was rich enough to provide free, functional and democratically-managed
public education at all levels. Unfortunately what has made this impossible
despite the huge and inestimable resources at the behest of Nigeria is the
neo-liberal and anti-poor capitalist philosophy of the APC and PDP ruling elite
who see education not as a social responsibility but as a profit venture.
We wish to
congratulate all LASU students and workers for this victory. We thank all
members of the #SaveLASU Campaign Movement, the Lagos State University Students
Union (LASUSU), the National Union of Lagos State Students (NULASS), Academic
Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) LASU chapter, Senior Staff Association of
Nigerian Universities (SSANU) LASU Chapter, all other staff unions in LASU,
Joint Action Front (JAF), civil society organisations in Lagos, professional
bodies, CLEEN Foundation and Barrister Mohammed Fawehinmi, electronic and print
media as well as many others that space may not permit us to mention for their
support and roles they played. This victory is for all people who believe in
the principle of free, public-funded and democratically-managed education.
The
victory against LASU fee hike is a single important event in the student
movement over the last decade. Students at the Obafemi Awolowo University
(OAU), Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) and other campuses where fees have
been hiked have a lot to learn from the struggle in LASU. One central lesson
they must learn is that struggle pays and that when the oppressed masses fight
for their right, they can win.
However
the struggle to make education affordable and accessible to all does not end
with this victory. So far anti-poor
political parties like the All Progressive Congress (APC) and the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) continue to determine our fate, there will be no end to
anti-poor policies like fee hike and education commercialisation. Indeed, this
current victory in the struggle for reversal of LASU fees will be immediately
threatened if the APC and/or the PDP come to power in Lagos in 2015.
Permanent victory can only be won in the struggle for free,
functional and democratically-managed public education when we rid ourselves of
these anti-poor political parties and instead put in power at the States and
Federal level a genuine political party that represents the interests of the
workers, poor masses, youth and students. This is why the ERC is supporting the
formation of the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) launched by the Democratic
Socialist Movement (DSM) and which is currently seeking registration from the
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). We urge all those who
laboured day and night to campaign for the reversal of LASU fees to join us in
the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) so that together we can work for the total
and complete liberation of Nigeria from the stranglehold of capitalism.
National
Coordinator
National Secretary
07033697259
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