Activists Back ASUU Strike

By Simon Ateba

Activists under the aegis of United Action for Democracy (UAD) have thrown their support behind the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and called on Labour and Civil Society Coalition (LASCO), to mobilise workers and civil society organisations in Nigeria for a nationwide solidarity protest in support of the striking lecturers.

The activists said that the current state of public universities and polytechnics in Nigeria is appalling and will continue to affect the country negatively until a more responsible government comes to power.

Addressing journalists at a press conference in Lagos, Comrade Abiodun Aremu, UAD Convener said:

“The current state of the 93 universities in the country is to say the least appalling in terms of inadequate infrastructure, poor remuneration, lacking research grants, state and administrative highhandedness.

“Any ivory tower whose environment is not conducive for learning cannot be expected to compete in standards with other well funded and managed universities in Africa and across the globe.

“Instead, such university system, as is the case in Nigeria, will continue to engender one fourth baked graduates, brain-drain, campus cult violence, poor manpower development, authoritarian and warped values system and general insecurity.”

UAD wondered why the Yar’Adua administration has failed to see reason in the genuine demands of ASUU.

“Rather than respond to the genuine demand of ASUU, the failed Yar’Adua regime has begun a campaign to discredit and undermine these genuine demands in the same way it did with the demand by primary and secondary school teachers (TSS), which most state governments are yet to honour. The regime floated propaganda that ASUU wants N78 billion smacks of falsehoods, makes mockery of its Nigerian rebranding campaign,” UAD said.

The activists said that while public office holders smile to banks every year, those in charge of the country’s education system wallow in abject poverty.

“It is instructive to note that political office holders (comprising 472 from the federal executive, 36 governors and their 2, 664 officials, and 1, 152 officials of the 36 State Assemblies) in the guise of salaries, car maintenance allowance, wardrobe allowance, utility and entertainment, costs the economy more than N1.2 trillion annually. This is aside from the sitting allowances and public hearings per-diem, yet the 93 universities with just about 13, 000 staff receives poor funding.”

Aremu said that his pro-democracy and human rights movement has consistently maintained that the decadence in Nigerian universities can only be overcome by a just system that appreciates education as a fundamental necessity for all citizens.

The activists also described as ‘public relations gimmick that is doomed to fail from the onset’, the unconditional amnesty granted by President Yar’Adua to the Niger Delta militants, who according to the activists are fighting for self determination.

“It is hurried concoction to placate the `militants’ who have been criminalized by the political criminals in power,” the activists described the amnesty.