• Several
Students Injured as Management Unleashes Reign of Terror to Enforce
Proscription of the Union
• Appeals to FG to call the Vice
Chancellor, Prof. Ogunmodede, to Order
• Demands
Restoration of Independent Unionism and Recall of all Victimized Students
Activists
The Education Rights
Campaign (ERC) calls on the Prof. Eyitope Ogunmodede-led management of the
Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile- Ife to immediately rescind its recent
decision to proscribe the Students’ Union in the interest of peace and progress
of the university.
We also demand the
recall of ERC National Secretary, Comrade Omole Ibukun and three (3) other
student activists who were recently placed on indefinite suspension by the
University administration for simply complaining about the poor welfare
conditions of the hostels.
OAU is being gradually
turned into a military barrack where dissent is a crime. Staff unions, the
labour movement, Civil Society Organizations and NGOs must not watch and allow
Prof. Ogunmodede turn the nation’s clock back to the days of military
dictatorship. As we write, several students have been injured by over fifty
(50) security men armed with cudgels and sledge hammers sent by the University
Vice Chancellor, yesterday Monday 6 November 2017, to enforce the proscription
by closing down the union office. There are no words to describe the latest
action of the University administration other than tyrannical, despotic,
undemocratic and unacceptable.
For avoidance of doubt,
we must point out that the Prof. Ogunmodede-led University authorities went
beyond their powers in proscribing the Students Union. The existence of
Students Unionism is guaranteed by relevant provisions of the 1999 constitution
of the Federal republic of Nigeria (AS Amended). As such, no Vice Chancellor
has the power to pronounce a Students Union banned the same way same cannot be
done to the staff unions. Against this background, the action of the management
of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) is therefore illegal, null and void and
a reckless abuse of authority.
To be clear, the reason
for the proscription of the union was because the mass of students had the
courage to impeach the Union president, Dr. IBK who happened to be a close
friend of the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Ogunmodede, for various acts of infraction
of the union constitution and misdemeanor including misappropriation of union
funds, gross negligence and inability to defend students interests and hiring
of cultists to assault innocent students on November 1st 2017.
We call on the Federal
government and in particular the visitor to the University, President Muhammadu
Buhari, to call the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Ogunmodede, to order before he turns
OAU into a military garrison. So far over, about eight (8) undergraduate and
postgraduate students of the University have been suspended since Prof.
Ogunmodede’s appointment as the Vice Chancellor of the University. For a Vice
Chancellor who has not spent up to seven (7) months in office, Prof. Ogunmodede
has clearly shown by all his actions so far that his administration is bound to
be one under which all democratic rights enjoyed by students and workers in the
university community would be forcefully taken away.
The proscription of the
Students Union following the action taken by the mass of students to democratically
remove the union president only goes to show what we have always alleged which
is that the university administration is unnecessarily meddling in the affairs
of the Students Union with a view to control it. As far as we are concerned,
independent unionism is a right. Students have a right to pilot their union
affairs as they like and to punish their erring union officers.
We hereby charge the
students movement, staff unions, the labour movement, Non-Governmental
Organizations (NGOs) and civil society groups to rise up to resist the emerging
tyranny in OAU by demanding immediate restoration of the students union and
recall of suspended students activists.
Hassan
Taiwo Soweto
National Coordinator
(07033697259)
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