A Gross Misrepresentation of
Nigerian Students and Youths
09/09/2014
Press
Statement
The
Education Rights Campaign (ERC) totally condemns the Yinka Gbadebo-led
leadership of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) for the
award of Grand Commander of Nigerian Students to President Goodluck Jonathan.
This award
is an embarrassment to the community of students and youth in Nigeria. The best
response to this national shame is for students and activists on all campuses
to rise up to reclaim the NANS from racketeers and careerists like Yinka
Gbadebo and his gang. A return of NANS to the democratic and mass platform it
used to be and with a leadership that is sufficiently bold enough to defend
student interests is vital if the ongoing onslaught on public education in
forms of fee hike and commercialisation is to be resisted.
Fearful of
the widespread unpopularity of his pro-capitalist and viciously anti-poor
government which has failed Nigerians in all ramifications, Jonathan and his
handlers hope to use this award to rehabilitate his battered image in the
run-up to the 2015 general elections. Like a drowning person, Jonathan is
prepared to hang onto any straw. This is why despite the lack of credibility of
NANS which most Nigerians derisively see as an association of non-students and
unemployed youths, Jonathan is not in the least embarrassed to be identified
with it. As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together.
This award
may have been conferred in the name of Nigerian Students. Certainly, it enjoys
no endorsement and support of Nigerian students and youths. In 1988 when the
students of Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife were to confer on late Chief
Gani Fawehinmi the award of Senior Advocate of the Masses (SAM), not only was
the award ratified by the union parliament, Chief Gani Fawehinmi was invited to
the campus where he received the award in the presence of thousands of students
and the media. If the organisers of this national charade were confident of
themselves, instead of taking the award to Aso Rock they should have invited
President Jonathan to any campus of their choosing to receive the award.
In any
case, this award will further strengthen the belief in many quarters that those
who claim to be leaders of NANS are mostly non-students who are using the
association to line their own pockets. Otherwise how could a genuine student,
who is studying under inhumane academic environment as exists on all campuses
across the country or who is faced with the prospect of losing their
studentship as a result of outrageous fees, support President Jonathan or wish
to have him continue in office beyond 2015?
Definitely,
this award will anger millions of Nigerian Students and youths. This is not
surprising. President Jonathan's government has been a failure in all
ramifications. Its failure in the area of public education is embarrassing.
From 7.3 million few years ago, the number of out-of-school children has
increased to 10.3 million under President Jonathan's watch. If the situation in
the North East is factored in, certainly the number of out-of-school children
could be well above 12 million. Public Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges
of Education were if taken together, closed for more than two years as a result
of strikes caused by the government refusal to meet genuine demands of
education workers. Despite the success of the ASUU strike in particular in
forcing a marginal commitment to release N200 billion to fund public tertiary
institutions, the government has responded with steep increases in fees.
Students at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) whose fees have been jerked up
would definitely not support an award purportedly presenting Goodluck Jonathan
as a student-friendly President.
However
this award is coming on the heels of a similar fraudulent award of Senior
Advocate of Nigerian Students conferred on Governor Fashola of Lagos State by
the Sunday Asefon-led Southwest (Zone D) leadership of NANS. Just like
President Jonathan, Fashola and the APC badly needed an image laundering after
the bitter defeat students and workers of the Lagos State University (LASU)
gave them in the victorious struggle for reversal of hiked fees. For all its
shallow radical posturing, the NANS Zone leadership is not so much different
from the National Leadership of NANS. Both are simply two sides of a bad coin.
While the NANS President Yinka Gbadebo and his team of racketeers represent the
pro-People's Democratic Party (PDP) wing of NANS, the Asefon-led Zone D
leadership is the pro-All Progressive Congress (APC) wing. What unites the two
wings however is readiness to sell out students to the highest bidder.
The ERC
considers both awards as a gross misrepresentation of Nigerian students who are
burdened by skyrocketting tuition fees, a broken public education system and an
uncertain future all which are direct results of the pro-market capitalist
policies favoured by the governments of both President Jonathan and Governor
Fashola.
As
election approaches, the two main capitalist parties in Nigeria - PDP and APC -
are falling over themselves in a competition to use education as a ruse to
hoodwink the people again. But in reality, neither the PDP nor APC deserves the
votes of students, youth and workers. Nigeria under the rule of either of these
political parties will continue to retrogress, public education will continue
to be underfunded and commercialised while majority of the people will continue
to wallow in abject poverty in the midst inexhaustible wealth.
There is
urgent need for the emergence of a mass working peoples' political alternative
that can fight for socialist change. If a genuine political party that represents
the 99% should exist today and is able to aggregate and give political
expression to the palpable anger of students, youth and workers who are
yearning for change, both the PDP and APC can be easily swept away in a deluge
of mass uprising. It is to this end that the ERC supports the formation of the
Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) and plays active role in building it as a
credible and formidable platform.
.
Hassan
Taiwo Soweto Michael Ogundele
National
Coordinator National Secretary
07033697259
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