ERC CALLS FOR COORDINATED AND UNITED ACTION
Over the past three weeks, students have risen up
on several campuses to protest against fees, poor welfare conditions etc. These
protests have occurred in UNILAG, BSU, UNIPORT, AAUA, Ogun State College of
Health Tech and now UI. At least 3 of these campuses have been closed while two
students were, reportedly, shot dead by police in UNIPORT.
In a latest development, the University of Ibadan
(UI) was shut on Tuesday 26 April 2016 after students protested against poor
electricity supply and the suspension of a student for participating in a
protest a semester ago.
In a certain way, this growing uprising is
beginning to have the feature of a nationwide movement. As soon as one campus
is closed, another seems to pick up the gauntlet. In many ways, the issues
against which students are angry are similar. The connecting dot is that the
socio-economic crisis ravaging the country under the Buhari government is
impacting negatively on students as working class parents are getting poorer
and unable to meet the rising cost of education. Also the fuel scarcity and
national electricity crisis is further worsening the already terrible
conditions of living and study on campuses. This is also combined with the
corruption of the management of higher institutions who in their bid to cut
cost ration electricity supply even when it is available from the DISCOs and
also limit the use of generator to provide relief at period of power outage.
Unfortunately, the Buhari capitalist government has no real solutions to any of
these problems.
What is missing however is a coordinated response
and a plan to unite this uprising into a nationwide movement that can begin to
challenge the terrible conditions of living on campuses and the rising cost of
education, linking this with a demand for increase funding for public
education. A golden opportunity to do this was missed on Saturday April 16 2016
when the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) held its
pre-convention at the University of Jos (UNIJOS). Not a single resolution was
passed in favour of NANS organizing actions in solidarity with students in
UNILAG and UNIPORT both of which had been shut at the time. In the glorious
days of NANS, the pre-convention would have been used to declare solidarity
actions, more so, that two students were shot dead at UNIPORT. By now, a
nationwide lecture boycott would be raging on campuses in solidarity with
UNILAG, UNIPORT, AAUA and BSU such that the authorities of UNILAG would not
have had the temerity to go on to dissolve the Students Union as it has now
done. Unfortunately this was not done.
If students in individual campuses are left to
fight alone and get closed down, very soon no tertiary institution would be
left opened. More so, all the issues causing the recent protests are similar from
campus to campus. This means there is a concrete basis for us to unite the
protests into a united nationwide movement. As the saying goes, there is
strength in numbers.
On this basis, the Education Rights Campaign (ERC)
calls for the following actions which students’ activists and union leaders can
work towards in their respective areas to begin to build the uprising breaking
out into a nationwide movement that can win demands:
(1) The ERC calls on students unions and activists
to turn the forthcoming May Day celebration into a day of protest to kick
against the closure of campuses and demand that all students’ demands against
fees and for improved welfare conditions must be met. The May Day is workers
day celebration. It is a day of the oppressed and it is not in doubt that
workers and students are being oppressed! Students Unions, JCCs and students
activists should mobilize to May Day venues to march alongside workers with
their placards demanding that the government intervenes in the crises on the campuses
with a view to meeting all the demands.
(2) Most of the students’ protests and campus
closures have occurred in the South west. We therefore call for an emergency
congress of the NANS Zone D to discuss how the students’ movement in the zone
should respond to the crisis. This congress should be used to bring together
all students unions and organizations within the zone with a view to discuss
and agree to a plan of action.
(3) Also the NANS Zone D and unions should begin to
mount pressure on the national leadership of NANS to call a similar congress to
allow for a discussion of a plan for a nationwide action.
(4) For a one-day lecture boycott and mass protest
to solidarize with students in UNILAG, UI, UNIPORT, AAUA, BSU etc and demand
adequate funding of education.
Signed
Hassan Taiwo Soweto
ERC National
Coordinator
Michael Ogundele
ERC National
Secretary
No comments:
Post a Comment