DEATH OF OOU 12: A METAPHOR OF THE BACKWARD CONDITIONS OF LIFE IN NIGERIA

WE SUPPORT THE MASS ACTIONS OF STUDENTS AND WORKERS AND THEIR DEMAND FOR JUSTICE 

PRESS STATEMENT

We of the Education Rights Campaign, Ogun State join students and staff members of the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye to mourn the untimely death of twelve students of the institution who lost their lives in a fatal accident along the Sagamu-Benin expressway. We commiserate with their parents and families for the huge loss that the death of their wards means for them having labored tirelessly to fund their education.

  

We hold that the gory tale of the nature of the fatal accident in which a truck laden with a container had a head-on collision with the commercial bus in which the students were travelling is a metaphor of the backward conditions of life in present day Nigeria. Despite enormous riches in oil, human and mineral resources, Nigeria parades one of the worst and backward transportation systems in the world. If the railways were working as they should, there would be no need for trucks on our roads as haulage of heavy goods especially across great distances would be restricted to the railways. But decades of looting of public wealth by Nigeria's capitalist ruling elites have reduced us to a Nation where the only available means of transportation is by road. To make matters worse, even the roads are in most cases untarred and filled with potholes and gullies such that they have become deathtraps for vast majority of Nigerians.  

We support all the mass actions that have been undertaken by the mass of students and the demand that all the culprits of the ignoble act be brought to book. We hold that the fact the all the government agencies including the Police, Federal Road Safety Commission and the Ogun State Traffic Compliance and Enforcement (TRACE) were not up to their task in providing urgent rescue and medical attention to the victims is an indictment on both the federal and state governments.     

We demand that the state government provide the best medical care for the sole surviving student from the accident and adequate compensation for the families of the deceased students. We also demand the improvement of health care facilities and emergency response and rescue agencies across the state to ensure timely response which can make the difference between death and survival in the unfortunate events of accidents and other mishaps. 

 

We of the ERC call for unity of workers and students in the struggle for improved living and welfare conditions as well as adequate funding of public education. We of the Education Rights’ Campaign are at the forefront of the mobilization of a united front of genuine forces of struggle in the students’ and education workers’ movement in building an unstoppable mass movement in the coming period against neo-liberal capitalist attacks which will activate the arteries of mass struggle in the wider working people’s movement in the quest for a working people government and genuine socialist change. We urge genuine change-seeking students and workers to join the ERC in building a genuine layer of students and working class activists that can quicken this process     

Ayo Ademiluyi
Acting State Coordinator, ERC Ogun State Chapter
08148252959