· Condemns NANS Participation
Press
Statement
The Education Rights Campaign (ERC)
declares President Jonathan's National Conference a charade. The National
Conference is an expensive sideshow that is not designed to address the
country's challenges like mass unemployment, rotten public education sector,
and degenerate public health services etc.
We condemn the participation of the
National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) at the National Conference
which has been convened by a deeply unpopular government looking for any straw
to hang onto.
We do not expect any positive
outcome from the conference as it is not a SOVEREIGN conference of the elected
representatives of working and oppressed masses of Nigeria. Rather it is a
gathering meant to rebuild the damaged reputation of the government by
presenting a semblance that Nigerians are talking when indeed what is happening
is that a few people have been invited closer to dine with the government and
thereby reduce the opposition against this brutally anti-poor government.
ERC urge the mass of students not to
entertain a single shred of hope that the six delegates presented by National
Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) will ever represent their best
interests. The reasons are not far-fetched:
(1) NANS as an organisation has in
the recent years failed woefully to represent the best interests of students
concerning issues such as education funding and democratic management of
schools. During the last strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities
(ASUU) which was waged for adequate funding of the public universities, the
national leadership of NANS came out in support of the Federal government.
Right now public Polytechnics and Colleges of Education have been shut for
months yet NANS has not deemed it urgent to call a nationwide protest to compel
government to meet ASUP and COEASU's demands. Against this background, it
should be clear to all discerning minds that the six delegate slots allocated
to NANS is not an appreciation of the weight of the students population in
society as some impressionable minds have said. Rather it is actually a
celebration of the complete ideological capitulation of NANS to the government.
(2) The six delegates that would
purportedly speak for students at the National Conference were not elected
directly by the mass of students. So hasty and undemocratic was the
Yinka-Gbadebo NANS leadership's urge to partake in the criminal wastage of our
collective wealth which the National Conference actually is that the mass of
students were not even consulted through local congresses to draw up a collective
agenda which the six delegates are meant to canvass at the National Conference.
We therefore urge all Students'
Unions across tertiary institutions to condemn NANS participation at the
National Conference.
Instead of participating in a
National Conference whose resolutions just like the Obasanjo Conference would
be dumped in the lobby of the National Assembly and that is the end of it, NANS
should begin an immediate mobilisation of rank and file of Nigeria students
across various campuses to build a mass campaign for meeting of the demands of
ASUP and COEASU, reversal of hiked fees at the Lagos State University (LASU),
dropping of criminal charges against UNIUYO 44, proper funding of public
education sector, right to independent students' unionism, against
privatisation and commercialisation of public education sector and democratic
running of schools.
We make bold to say none of these
salient issues would be addressed by the National Conference and these are the
issues that NANS need to fight over on the streets of Nigeria instead of
scheming to benefit from the N7 billion National Conference largesse.
To us in the Education Rights
Campaign (ERC), the pretentious political prognosis of the Jonathan National
Confab will not in any way solve Nigeria's socio-political problems or salvage
the poor conditions of the country's public education sector.
The national confab with delegates
appointed from different ethnic, cultural, professional groups and civil
societies is designed to promote President Jonathan's second term bid and not
to address the country's political and socio-economic problems.
We strongly oppose this expensive
sideshow and task the trade union movement to immediately call for mass actions
towards mobilising the entire working class and poor masses to fight against
underfunding of public education, mass unemployment, privatization and for provision of living minimum wage for
workers, public ownership and democratic management of key sectors of the country
economy.
Hassan
Taiwo Soweto Michael Ogundele
National
Coordinator National Secretary
07033697259 07066249160
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