The leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC, have urged to support the strike declared by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) against the alleged inadequate funding of education by the Federal Government.
The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) Oyo State chapter in a statement in Ibadan on Monday said that both the NLC and TUC should support actions against the attack on education and to also come out with a programme of action including mass sensitization, strike and protest for the immediate and unconditional payment of the new minimum wage to Oyo state workers and adequate compensation for thousands of working people in the state whose shops/stalls and houses were demolished.
It also called on the leadership of the National Association of Nigeria Students (NANS) to organize a mass action against poor funding of education and recurrent cases of police killing and brutalization of unarmed Nigeria students. The SPN which blamed the ongoing strike by ASUU, condemned the recent hike in fees at the Emmanuel Alayande College of Education Oyo (EACOD) and the brutalization of students of the institution on peaceful protest by operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) at the instance of the school management, called on the authorities of the institution and the Oyo State government to immediately reverse the hiked fees and to effect the arrest and prosecution of officers of the police and other security agencies involved in the brutalization of the students.
It recalled that on Tuesday 16th July, 2013, Students of the EACOD trooped out in their thousands in a protest against the hike in school fees by the Dr. G.O. Oyewo-led administration. It said that the fees for the National Certificate in Education (NCE) programme have been increased such that students in 100 level, 200 level and 300 level, who used to pay N25, 000 (N14000 acceptance fee & N11, 000 school fee), N12, 000 and N15, 000 respectively, were now expected to pay N45, 000, N35, 000 and N43, 000 respectively. It added that the fees for students running degree programmes has been increased from N70, 000 to N115, 000. In addition to this, the first set of students admitted for the degree programme in the institution, but who are without admission letters, are being asked to pay N150, 000 for the issuance of their admission letters! This is outrageous and fraudulent.
"No doubt, the decision by the Dr. Oyewo-led management to hike fees in EACOD is highly anti-people as it will greatly compound the woes of the poor parents of these students who already groan under the various anti-poor policies of government at all levels regardless of political parties", it added.
SPN noted that the ACN-led government of Oyo State, which owns the institution had not only refused to implement the N18, 000 minimum wage policy signed into law in March 2011 for the public workers in the state but had also at different times destroyed the means of livelihood of poor artisans and petty traders in the state. "It is these artisans and traders, whose shops and stalls have been demolished under the guise of urban beautification without prior provision of alternatives or compensation, and public sector workers who constitute the greater percentage of parents of students in this institution," it said.
It vowed to continue to oppose every anti-working people policy, like the hike in school fees, which was an undue transfer of the responsibility of the government to the shoulders of already over-burdened poor parents.
It said that the argument that government alone cannot fund education as well as other social services, which is usually peddled by successive administrations formed by various anti-poor political parties like PDP, ACN, APGA, LP etc. at all levels, is not correct and quite fraudulent.
