WITH PUBLIC MEETINGS AND LEAFLETTING
40
years ago, on the morning of 16 June 1976, thousands of high school students
from the black township of Soweto began a protest against the Bantu education
system and the decision of the South African Apartheid government to impose
Afrikaans as a language of instruction in public schools. In response, the
racist Apartheid police opened fire on them, killing hundreds of young black
school children. The first casualty, Hector Pieterson, was no more than 13
years old. This singular action of the Apartheid government detonated a
powerful movement of students and workers that eventually led to the
dismantling of the racist and oppressive Apartheid system (a system for the perpetuation of white supremacist
minority rule) in South Africa.
To commemorate the history of this
struggle and draw useful lessons, three branches of the Education Rights
Campaign (ERC) organized a series of events and activities on Thursday 16 June
2016 at the Lagos State University (LASU), among public secondary school
students in Ajegunle (a poor community in Lagos state) and at the Obafemi
Awolowo University (OAU) where non-academic workers have been taking actions against
the corruption of the immediate-past Vice Chancellor of the University and his
desperate moves to usurp democratic process in the selection of the next Vice
Chancellor in order to cover his tracks. We present below brief reports and
pictures:
AJEGUNLE
Members of ERC Ajegunle
yesterday intervened in the June 16 day of action in secondary schools in
Ajegunle, precisely at Tolu complex. June 16 marks the date in history that the Soweto uprising occurred in 1976 in
South Africa, a struggle which brought students and black South African workers
together in a united struggle against the brutal apartheid regime in South
Africa, which succeeded 14 years after, despite bloody repression to bring a
glorious end to apartheid in South Africa. In commemorating this heroic
struggle, the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) chose June 16 as a day of
intervention in the crisis plaguing the Nigerian education sector, crisis of
government underfunding, inadequate and dilapidated infrastructures,
overcrowding, shortage of qualified teachers, very poor remuneration package
for teachers and low morale. All of these over the years have led to poor
standards in education and mass failure in WAEC, NECO and JAMB. It is in the
face of this crisis and in the face of the inability of the APC led government
to find a workable and lasting solution that the ERC Ajegunle branch went on a
mass sensitization campaign to public secondary schools in Ajegunle. Armed with
leaflets and placards we reached out to hundreds of students and a few teachers
that we met with the ideas of the need for teachers and students to come
together in united struggle against the government’s neo-liberal anti-poor
capitalist policies aimed at the commercialization and privatization of
education in Nigeria as APC governors in Oyo, Osun etc have recently attempted
to do. Apart from the fact that these states governors are also owing workers 5
to 6 months salaries, which had sparked off a united mass action of workers and
students against these wicked austerity/neo-liberal policies.
The
example of the Soweto uprising shows that only a united and consistent struggle
of workers, students and the poor masses can win victory. However, 22 years
after the fall of Apartheid, black South Africans still suffer from poverty and
exclusion from education, housing, jobs and opportunities. The lesson here is
that winning democratic or political right is not enough; there is a need to
build a movement to defeat capitalism and enthrone a democratic socialist
alternative. Drawing lessons from this, students and workers must organize to
defeat the neo-liberal capitalist regime in Nigeria that is bent on making
education the exclusive preserve of the rich.
LASU
Nearly 80 students
turned up today at a public meeting organized by the Education Rights Campaign
(ERC) - LASU Chapter at the Lagos State University (LASU) to commemorate the
40th anniversary of the June 16 Soweto uprising. Held
under the theme "The Soweto Uprising and its Relevance for the Struggle to
Save Public Education in Nigeria", the public meeting offered students the
opportunity of reconnecting with this important aspect of the history of
struggles on the African continent and how the echo of the magnificent movement
of high school students in South Africa found deep resonation in the "Ali
Must Go" students boycott and mass protest here in Nigeria two years after
in 1978 which was organized by the Segun Okeowo-led National Union of Nigerian
Students(NUNS). In taking account of the lessons, the meeting noted the
similarity of the issues that led to the uprising in SA and neo-liberal
policies and terrible conditions under which students learn in Nigeria. Were it
not for mass struggle of students and staff from 2011 to 2015, LASU would have
continued to be the most expensive public university thus leading to the
exclusion students from poor background. As the examples of 1976 in SA, 1978,
1984 and 1990 here in Nigeria show, organization is vital; so also is the
restoration of radical and revolutionary socialist ideas back in the students’
movement. Unfortunately, this no more the case with NANS. The meeting resolved
on the need to rebuild the students movement here in Nigeria and link students
struggles to the working class movement with a view to ending capitalism which
is ultimately the source of the crisis public education and society at large
face. We thank comrade Tony Dansu - Secretary Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU LASU), Ambode of LASU, the president of the Faculty of
Education and other activists for accepting to speak at the event. 7 students (one
male and 6 female) joined the ERC LASU branch immediately with a promise to
begin to attend branch meetings starting from Friday June 24. We urge all other
change-seeking students to join us. From tomorrow, the ERC train will move to Adeniran
Ogunsanya College of Education Ijanikin (AOCOED) and from there to other
campuses in Lagos to propagate the message of struggle to students and staff. The
ERC will continue to raise the banner of free and democratically-managed public
education high until it becomes a roaring and unstoppable mass movement.
OAU
The ERC OAU June 16
Public Meeting was attended by more than 26 Great Ife Students, even while Stalelites
were yet to resume. Despite the number, the quality of the discussions was
exceptional, while the intellectual resolutions reached on the salient issues
discussed were stainless. Watch out for the Communiqué of the Public Meeting.
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