We Demand that Government Meets
CASUOSTI’s demands so Students Can Resume Classes
PRESS STATEMENT
The Education Rights
Campaign (ERC) strongly condemns the Osun State government led by Aregbesola
for its brutalization of students who embarked on a peaceful demonstration
yesterday at the state capital, Osogbo, to protest the continuous closure of
their campuses as a result of government’ refusal to meet striking lecturers’
demands.
In the ensuing stampede
following the indiscriminate firing of tear gas canisters and live bullets by
the trigger happy policemen apparenly acting on the orders of the state government,
about 4 students sustained varying degrees of injuries. According to reports,
the students’ union buses were seized by the police and some students arrested
and detained. It took the intervention of the Students’ Union leaders for the
detained students to be released later in the day.
The ERC stands by the
students’ protests. They were demanding that the state government meet their
lecturers’ demands so they could resume classes. As far as we are concerned,
this demand is legitimate and a serious government that is truly committed to
education should not allow its youth to roam the streets when they should be in
school studying.
The four state-owned
institutions had been under lock and key for over four months now since
lecturers organized under the Council of Academic Staff Unions of Osun State
Tertiary Institutions (CASUOSTI) downed tools. The reason for their strike
comprises issues of funding, pay and working conditions. Instead of meeting
their demands, the state government has been engaging in a ridiculous and
dubious venture of blackmail and propaganda aimed at browbeating and
arm-twisting the striking lecturers into submission. Recently the state
government after failing for the umpteenth time to meet the lecturer’s demands
ordered the resumption of the institutions. This led to the return of
home-weary and frustrated students back to their campuses all infused with the
hope that finally the industrial actions had been resolved. However to their
chagrin they realized on resuming that the government was merely grandstanding.
It had failed woefully to meet any of the demands of the striking lecturers and
as a result lectures would not be held.
In anger, students
under the leadership of the National association of Nigerian Students (NANS)
Joint Campus Committee (JCC) Osun state axis mobilized and marched to the
streets of the state capital, Osogbo yesterday Monday October 12, 2015. Their
intention was to protest peacefully to inform the public of their plight and
also seek audience with the Governor. Alas, a few metres to the Governor’s
office, the praetorian guards of Aregbesola opened fire on the protesting
students; sending hundreds scampering across highways and jumping into gutters.
When the smoke cleared, many students had suffered injuries and many more had
lost phones and personal effects.
Governor Aregbesola’s
cup of impunity has run over and all Nigerians with a conscience and especially
the labour movement and civil society community must rise up to condemn its
evil actions. The almost daily reports of attacks on democratic rights carried
out by the government and its agents are alarming. Just few months ago, in the
thick of the struggle of Osun State workers and pensioners for payment of their
salaries, the Osun state coordinator of the Democratic Socialist Movement
(DSM), Barrister Alfred Adegoke, was attacked in his office by agents of the
Department of State Security (DSS), seriously brutalized and detained for
hours. His crime was his and the DSM’s public solidarity with the struggle of
workers and pensioners in the state.
If Aregbesola’s human
right record is poor, his dealings with labour show a governor who has immense
disdain for workers and students. The strike of the lecturers would not have been
this prolonged had the Governor being prepared to dialogue with them in good
faith.
We condemn the
government’s latest assault on the democratic rights of students of Osun state
tertiary institutions. We stand with the students in their demand for a quick
resolution of the industrial dispute so they can resume classes. We stand with
the striking lecturers for their legitimate demands which borders on education
funding, staff welfare and conditions and which Aregbesola has failed to meet
for months now. We call on Governor Aregbesola to meet CASUOSTI’s demands so
that students can resume classes.
Hassan
Taiwo Soweto Michael Ogundele
National
Coordinator (07033697259) National Secretary
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