Nigeria: Daily Dose On Education

Day One

By Soneye Abdul-Azeez Lekan LAS, Alliance of Nigerian Students Against Neo-liberal Attacks, 09 December 2018

COEASU only suspended its strike just because the government promised something(which won't be fulfilled). Today is the 36th day which ASUU has embarked on strike. ASUP will start their strike action on Wednesday.

In another news, association of Oil Marketers on the 2nd of December threatened the federal government to stop the distribution of petroleum products in the country if the government do not pay them their owed debt. And two days after these oil marketers issued this statement the government called them to a meeting and agreed to pay them.

ASUU has being asking the government to provide the facilities needed for easy teaching and learning in our universities including their End Academic Allowance since 2009. There was renegotiation in 2013 which ended with Memorandum Of Understanding (MoU). There was another strike action in 2017 for some weeks. Today, the demands in financial tune is #1.1trillion. The government has not even agreed to pay any dime. In fact, the government is proposing a tuition fee of #350,000 and #550,000 for art/Humanity and science students respectively from next session.

For the COEASU (college lecturers), their demands started in 2010. There was a renegotiation in 2014. They gave some weeks notice to the government before they embarked on strike. But the government didn't listen to them.

ASUP (polytechnic lecturers) also asked for their NEEDS as early as before 2014. They embarked on strike in 2017 but suspended it three weeks later when the government promised to provide these needs. Unfortunately till date, none of the needs have been provided.

Meanwhile, the demands of the Oil marketers is #800billion plus. Two days after threatening to stop oil distribution the government called them to a meeting and agreed to pay them. Some hours ago, the government agreed to pay #236billion with the promise to balance up in some weeks to come.

The total number of all oil marketers is less than 200 persons.

The total number of Nigerian Students is more than 40million. Total number of lecturers is in hundreds of thousands.

Unfortunately, the government answered the oil marketers within four days while it disregard the request of all the unions of lecturers for the past 9years.

One thing is evident, the government has its priority of interest in making much more profit than creating qualitative education for the young generation which is why it is investing more on education while it is extorting from Nigerian students.

(Another point, you should not be deceived by a government which it's Vice President as a professor is sharing #10, 000 up and down simply to buy people's vote ahead and nothing more. Tell oga thief to sum all these #10,000s together and put it on education.)

If you are sitting at home or anywhere thinking this government is about you, you are deceiving yourself. It is evident enough that both PDP and APC are parties to destroy the masses. We should not think all those parties like ADC, ADP, APM which are 'satellite parties' to PDP/APC are the alternative either.

Obviously 2019 will be a very critical year of struggle for Nigerian masses and they must start taking their future into their own hands from this moment. There is no more reasons for standing as onlookers, we must all fight our common enemies now!

One thing is needed at least for now; the Students and Nigerian masses must unite and revolt against all these old men in a physical manner and through electoral ballot.