*Students, parents
and labour movement must prevail on Senator Ajimobi-led State Government to
accede to demands of the striking workers now!
Press Statement
The Oyo State Chapter of Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN)
fully supports Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), the Polytechnic
Ibadan chapter on its ongoing strike action to protest against the serious
state of infrastructural decay; epileptic power supply; poor staff development
programmes; lack of adequate facilities for proper teaching, learning and
research; gross insecurity of lives and properties of residents on campus among
others. These issues and demands of ASUP are a reflection of poor and
inadequate funding of the institution by the APC government in the state.
At the same time the SPN calls on students, parents and
the general public to reject the management extension of the resumption date to
20th January, 2014 as this is a ploy by the state government to
prevent students from resuming out of fear of the possible supports the ongoing
lecturers strike is capable of provoking among mass of the students whom had
been victims of many of the rots in the institution.
The SPN calls on the Ajimobi-led state government to stop
its fruitless merry-go-round and immediately accede to the demands of the
striking workers.
On the 30th December, 2013, members of ASUP
polytechnic of Ibadan branch were forced to adopt the option of embarking on
indefinite strike action. This was after the state government at different
times had refused to acknowledge let alone respond to several letters written
by the Union on how to avert the crisis. of gross underfunding and non-payment
of outstanding academic allowances among others within the institution.
It is also worthy to note that as a result of the poor
funding of public education in Oyo State by successive governments, the
polytechnic of Ibadan as well as other institutions of public education in the
state are unthinkably bedeviled with serious state of infrastructural decay;
epileptic power supply; poor staff development programmes; lack of adequate
facilities for proper teaching, learning and research; gross insecurity of
lives and properties of residents on campus among others.
Many primary and secondary schools in the state today cannot
boast of chairs/tables. Students sit on bare floor, many classrooms turned to swimming
pools especially during rainy session due to leaking roofs. In many cases,
there are close to 100-140 students in a single classroom, on the average with
a teacher responsible for a minimum of six classes across various levels.
Under this kind of ugly circumstances, it is very
apparent that proper student monitoring through assignment, tests, and other
forms of continuous assessment rarely take place because of the volume of
scripts teachers have to contend with. This situation is usually compounded by
poor salaries under which all workers in the state groan. As at press time, it
so sad to once again reveal that Senator Ajimobi-led government is yet to
commence the implementation of N18,000 minimum wage signed into law since March
25th, 2011.
In spite of all the highlighted terrible state of public
education in Oyo State, the worse case is that the so called progressive APC
government in the state has once again shown through the just approved
appropriation bill for the year 2014 that proper and adequate funding of
education as well as other needs of the people are less important among their
priorities for the year 2014. According to 2014 Budget proposal presented by
Senator Abiola Ajimobi on the Thursday, 19th December, 2014 to the state assembly for approval, a paltry sum
of N25,680,000, which represent just
27.67% of the total budget of N188.9billion was allocated to fund the entire
social services which include health, education, housing among others.
This means that if the so called meager percentage of
resources allocated to social service is shared evenly among what constitute
social service, it is very clear that, what will go to education, a sector that
has no fewer than 56,000 workers and 4 million students will be less than 10%
which is less than 13% set aside for general administration, the
money/resources set aside to settle and appease political acolytes; employ the
services of political thugs among others. In the same vein, the recurrent
expenditure which is largely constituted by the salaries and allowances of a
handful of political office holders who are less than 1% the Oyo State
estimated population of 19million people was allocated a huge sum of N96.041
billion representing 50.9% - the largest
percentage of the budget.
These kind of anti-masses breakdown of budgetary
allocation for the 2014 fiscal year, once again gives credence to the SPN
age-long argument that the poor state of Nigeria's education sector as well as
other social services is not a reflection of a state of financial distress of
the country rather as a result of the profit-first philosophy which all
governments and their representatives regardless of political parties across
the country subscribe to.
In view of this, we hereby call on youths, students,
workers and the general masses not to be cajoled by the usual lifeless argument
by government representatives and spokespersons that the government alone does
not have financial muscle to fund education alone as well as other social
services. To us in SPN, this argument is unfounded and deceitful! As a matter
of fact, if the resources at the disposal of the state no matter how small it
is claimed are evenly distributed through diligent investment in the areas of
needs of the people, it will be enough to guarantee free and qualitative
education at all levels for the entire Oyo State citizen. However, the major
obstacle in the path of Nigerians having access to free and quality education
as well as better life is the capitalist disposition of Nigeria's ruling elites
who dominate the affairs both in the polity and business.
Therefore, to reverse this unbalanced socio-economic
arrangement calls for a socialist transformation of Nigeria's economy in which the
commanding heights of the economy will be nationalized and placed under a
democratic control and management of the working masses. Only a government
formed on the basis of this kind of socialist programme can be truly and
genuinely committed to investing the resources of the society in social
infrastructures and basic social services like health and education through
which adequate jobs opportunities can be created for youths.
SPN hereby calls on workers, students, unemployed youths
and artisans among others in Oyo State to join us and let us build a genuine
socialist alternative to the vicious cycle of misery and nightmare of current
iniquitous, anti-poor capitalist system being represented and defended by
Ajimobi/APC-led government as well as other capitalist governments across the
country.
Abiodun Bamgboye (Abbey
Trotsky)
Protem Secretary, SPN Oyo State Chapter
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