NO TO ATTACK ON EDUCATIONUPDATE:Tony Fash and all the expelled
OAU, Ife, student activists have been reinstated. The university
governing council took the decision yesterday.They were
expelled from the school between 1995 and 1997.
Text of a Leaflet by NANS Zone D (= National Association of Nigerian Students)As we remember Sato Wiwa, we say On Friday November 10, 1995, Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa (novelist, poet, environmental activist and leader of MOSOP) and eight (8) other Ogoni rights activists were brutally murdered (hanged) by the Abacha military junta. They were neither murderers, robbers nor coupists. They were killed on the order of the late despot, General Sani Abacha to protect the greed, profit and selfish interests of multinational oil companies (vis Shell, Chevron, etc) and the sterile Nigerian ruling class in the Niger-Delta. Ken and his other members of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People had only led people of Ogoniland in the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria to demand the political emancipation, the cultural regeneration and the socio-economic reconstruction of the Niger-Delta area which was then and up till now being subjected to the wanton exploitation by Shell multinational in collaboration with the Nigerian state which began exploration of oil (the major national resources bestowed on the region) since 1953, make billions of petrol dollars day in day out from such exploitative exploration but give to the people of the region in return hunger, starvation, homelessness, anguish, underdevelopment, environmental degradation and social cum psychological insecurity. Today, Nigerian students under the aegis of National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) Zone D remembers, as for ever more Ken Saro Wiwa and the other 8 Ogoni rights activists. We hold that though Ken might have been killed, his ideas live. We dedicate this year's commemoration of the state murder of Ken and others to our generational fight against the anti-poor neo-liberal policies of the Nigerian ruling class vis the wholesale privatisation and commercialisation of the resources of the Nigerian people and most importantly the commercialisation of education and victimisation of educational workers, students and other workers in Nigeria in general and Lagos State in particular (vis the return of schools to missions and the non-payment of salaries of educational workers in the state which has led to the industrial action embarked upon by all unions in the state tertiary education sector). In Lagos, it's never been so bad Never had the education sector in Lagos received the kind of set back being presently recorded under the ignoble regime of Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu. In the early part of the year, students in the states primary education sector had to proceed from one term to the other without end of the term examination. This was due to the inability of the government to provide facilities including remuneration of teacher as for the conduct of the examinations. This is aside the sorry state of lack of adequate facilities like laboratories, classrooms, books, recreation facilities and teaching and non-teaching staff including the problem of non-payment of salaries which pervades the section of the state's education sector. Most recently, the Lagos State government unfolded its plans for the commercialisation and privatisation of education in the state, flagged off with the return of 48 public owned schools to missions and private proprietors. Numerous hypocritical arguments have been canvassed by Tinubu and his cronies to support this idea some which include the fall in the standard of education received in such schools due to collapse of infrastructure, etc, the question of character training, i.e. moral depravity, the fake promises of guaranteeing better working condition of workers in these schools and the false exposition of the idea as solution to the crisis of education in the state. The National Association of Nigerian Students, Zone D rejects all such and other 419 arguments and condemns in strong terms this anti-poor policy of Bola Tinubu. It is true that facilities in most schools have terribly decayed. Teachers' morale is low and inefficient. Examination malpractice, admission racketeering, cultism, etc are prevalent. We however, hold that the public schools are in this sorry state of decay not because the public lack the requisite means to keep them in good functioning order but because of the selfish interests and misplaced priorities of successive regimes in the state including that of Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu. On character training: Tinubu and his allies argue that mission schools demonstrate competence in educational training and character moulding of youths. This argument just like others is false and baseless. A quick glance at the array of politicians or professionals alike who have been ruling this country since independence to date reveals that most of these characters attended missionary schools or schools managed by missionaries. But when one judges by the rapacious manner these elements have been looting and mismanaging the country's resources, no reasonable person should share in the illusion of the divine character training ability of the so-called missionaries. The truth is that it is the socio-economic arrangement prevailing in the society (i.e. capitalism) that determines the morality of individuals in the society and the society as a whole and not whether they attend public schools or private or mission schools. Tinubu and his agents further pretend that teachers who choose to remain in these schools after the transfer to private owners will have their jobs guaranteed and probably with better remuneration. This like many other promises of capitalist rulers is false and deceptive. Any right thinking individual should know that the state government cannot continue to dictate the conditions of service in such schools once they become property of private individuals. Most importantly, the NANS Zone D is opposed to this reactionary anti-poor policy of education commercialisation of Tinubu under the guise of return of schools to missions and we call on other labour and youth organisations to join us in this fight because this policy is meant to jeopardise the educational right and future of thousands of students whose parents will not be able to afford the huge amount of money that will be charged as school fees by the proprietors and will therefore be doomed to illiteracy. Equally, threatened by this obnoxious policy is the jobs and working conditions of thousands of teachers and non-teaching staffs alike. Apart from the threat to jobs, teachers who are luckily to remain in such mission owned schools and their fresh counterparts will most likely be denied the rights and working conditions being currently enjoyed by teachers in the public service like the right to unionise, the right to pensions, etc. Mass retrenchment of teachers who choose to remain in the public schools as most teachers are likely to do, will soon become the order of the day. Due to lack of basic facilities of learning like classrooms, offices, bookshops, laboratories, libraries, recreational facilities, etc and the lack of preparedness of the government to provide such, the state government will sooner than later come up with the argument that it can no longer continue to pay salaries of idle teachers to justify the sack at thousands of teachers. It should equally be stressed that this idea of returning schools to missions is an act of brazenly robbing the public to satisfy the selfish profit motive of a few privileged crooks in the society. This is because when those schools were acquired for public use some 25 years ago, the owners were fully compensated. Since then, billions of publicly owned wealth have been expended on the schools. Thus, like the anti-poor, neo-liberal policies being implemented in other sectors of the economy both at the state and at the centre, this act is a sheer looting of public assets by the already super rich. Non-Payment of Lecturers' Salaries and Victimisation of Activists At the moment, all industrial unions in the Lagos State owned tertiary institutions such as LASU, AOCOED, LACOPED, LASPOTECH, etc have embarked on industrial action to demand the payment of their salaries and emoluments and improved welfare conditions including the provision and impoverishment on basic facilities of teaching, learning and research. The industrial action has dragged into months with the state government paying little or no attention to the demands of the workers both teaching and non-teaching. This has led to the collapse in activities in the affected institutions. Like the experience with all industrial action in the education sector, students and parents are not left out of the social and psychological effects of the strikes. This has led to protests from students in some of the affected schools, particularly LASU and AOCOED. Instead of heeding the call of the students and the staff unions in Lagos, Tinubu responded with threat to privatise all the Lagos State owned higher institutions. That obnoxious plan of Tinubu must be resisted by all the stakeholders. The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) Zone D, tasks the Lagos State government to immediately accede to the demands of the unions in order to salvage higher education in the state. We are however, not oblivious of the disinterestedness of the state government to fund education and their desperate commitment to the anti-poor polices of commercialisation of education, rationalisation of staffs (teaching and non-teaching), rationalisation of courses in line with the dictates of IMF/WB, victimisation of union activists (lecturers and students) and the grand design to make education the exclusive preserve of the rich at the peril of the poor. The NANS Zone D therefore, calls on all stakeholders in the education sector, the academic, non-academic and students' unions, other labour and youth organisations, the parents and the general public to rally round for a Joint Action to salvage education in Lagos State in particular and Nigeria in general from ruins. We call on you to join us at Yaba Bus stop (by Tai Solarin statute) on Saturday 10th November, 2001 by 11a.m. prompt to flag off our campaign against earlier stated policies of the Nigerian state and Governor Bola Tinubu's Lagos State government in particular while commemorating the 6th year of the gruesome murder of Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa. OUR CARDINAL DEMANDS:
ISSUED BY NANS ZONE D SECRETARIAT
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