Calls
for meeting of Striking lecturers Demands and Improved Funding of Education
Press
statement
The
Education Rights Campaign (ERC) unequivocally condemns the decision of the
Governor Yahaya Bello-led Kogi state government to ban the activities of the
Kogi State University (KSU) Chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities
(ASUU) for embarking on strike action to push home demands for payment of owed
arrears of salaries and allowances as well as other demands.
We
urge the Kogi state government to immediately and unconditionally reverse the
illegal, undemocratic and despotic ban and instead pursue the honorable path of
meeting the demands of the striking lecturers.
This
action of the Kogi state government is an assault on democratic rights
especially the right to freedom of association as enshrined in the 1999 constitution
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as well as ILO Convention 87 on Freedom of
Association and Protection of the Right to Organize to which Nigeria is a
signatory. The Kogi State government must be made to understand that this is
democracy and that strike actions and protests are legally acceptable. We
therefore call on the labour movement and the students’ movement to resist this
attack with mass actions.
The
anti-poor government of Kogi state has taken this reprehensible action in order
to arm twist and compel the striking lecturers to abandon their demands for
payment of owed salaries and allowances as well as other demands.
We
salute the ASUU for its resilience despite attempt by the despotic state
government to undermine the strike with false propaganda and security forces.
It is shameful and undemocratic that a government will resolve to use force to
compel workers to resume work instead of meeting their demands. It is now about
seven months since the strike started yet nothing is being done by the state
government to meet the demands so that students can resume academic activities.
This
latest attack however is just one out of many undemocratic actions of the
tyrannical Governor Yahaya Bello-led Kogi State government. The same government
went on air last year to threaten students because they protested in support of
striking education workers who are being owed backlogs of salary by the state
government.
To
us in the ERC, the only way to resolve the impasse is for the state government
to meet the demands of the union. As far as we are concerned, ASUU has done the
needful for a serious government to meet its demands. The other staff unions
suspended the strike three weeks ago with the hope that government will do the
needful but ASUU remained on strike because major parts of its demands have not
been meet.
The
Kogi State government is going all about to blackmail the striking lecturers.
In one of the propaganda, the state government claimed that ASUU is not calling
off its seven months old strike action after government had allegedly met 90
percent of its demands. But till today,
the government is yet to spell out the demands it met out of the ASUU demands.
In
the first instance, it is the nonchalance and lackadaisical attitude of the
government to public education that contributed to the situation whereby five
state owned institutions were closed for five months due to strike actions
embarked upon by teaching and non-teaching staff. Therefore, it is Governor
Yahaya Bello that should be held responsible, and not ASUU or any other staff
union, for the enormous negative effect the strike has had on the students and
the state at large.
A responsive and responsible government will
do all that is needful to make life better for the workers, most especially in the
education sector where academic excellence is important.
We
reiterate our solidarity with the entire ASUU KSU and other staff unions and
the students. We shall continue to call for political actions, such as rally,
protest, picket, symposium and public meetings until their demands are met and
public education is properly funded and democratically managed.
Dimeji Macaulay
Coordinator, ERC Northern Zone
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