Nigeria: The Struggle for Free Education Continues!

Brief Report (with Pictures) by the Revolutionary Socialist Vanguard (Sympathizing Section of the RCIT), 05 February 2019 https://revolutionarysocialistvanguard.wordpress.com

The revolutionary students in Nigeria are continuing their struggle for free education. As we reported already in the last months, the education workers are waging a strike for proper funding of the education institutions.

The Alliance of Nigerian students Against Neoliberal Attacks (ANSA), in which comrades of the Nigerian section play a leading role, has supported this struggle from the beginning with a series of activities. On 25 January, they hold some public activities in the Ikeja district in Lagos state. (See picture below).

In a communique issued by its National Executive Committee, ANSA restated its commitment to “the course of struggles to save the public education from being priced out of the reach of the students from mostly largely poor backgrounds and total ruins through the policies of commercialization and privatization of the government …” They continue to “call for full and public funding of the education sector.” Furthermore, ANSA accuses the government of being “clearly culpable of deliberately underfunding the education sector, by keeping the teaching, learning and living conditions of the students and their teachers in abject porosity. We have commenced intensive and organized sensitizations to ensure that Nigerian students and especially the striking education workers not to back down on their demands until the Federal Government of Nigeria fully meet them. We are aware too that the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) is conniving with the Federal Government of Nigeria to frustrate the industrial actions of the striking lecturers of under the auspices of the ASUU and ASUP and we have openly started to expose this conspiracy through our press releases and mass actions. Since NANS has become the arm of the Ministry of education of the government, we must quickly begin to reach out our ranks and files in order to abort this ploy.”

Comrade Obafemi Sodunola, a leading member of the Nigerian section of the RCIT and the National Public Relations Officer of ANSA, said: “We will continue the struggle as long as it takes! Our struggle for free education is part of our perspective to fight for a socialist future!”

We refer readers to past reports from the Nigerian comrades which can be read on the RCIT’s website www.thecommunists.net. See also:

Soneye Abdul-Azeez Lekan Las: Nigeria: Daily Dose On Education, 09 December 2018, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/nigeria-daily-dose-on-education/

Interview with Obafemi Sodunola: The Revolutionary Student Movement in Nigeria, September 2018, https://www.thecommunists.net/rcit/nigeria-interview-with-ansa-leader/

Interview with Sanyaolu Juwon: Nigeria: “Stalinism is an Obstacle in Building an Authentic Marxist and Internationalist Organization!” https://www.thecommunists.net/rcit/interview-with-sanyaolu-juwon-rcit-nigeria/

See also the political platform of the RSV: For Socialist Revolution in Nigeria and on the African Continent!, https://www.thecommunists.net/rcit/platform-of-rsv-nigerian-sympathizing-section-of-the-rcit/