OOU: AMOSUN SHOULD MEET THE DEMANDS OF STUDENTS AND REOPEN THE UNIVERSITY NOW!

FOR ADEQUATE FUNDING OF EDUCATION IN OGUN STATE

PRESS STATEMENT

We of the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) Ogun State strongly condemn the onslaught of the Ibikunle Amosun government on education in the state. In a sheer demonstration of attack on democratic rights, the state government has shut down the Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Ago Iwoye and connived with the Ogun State Police Command to ban protests by mass of students for a further reduction of their school fees.

We call on Governor Amosun to immediately meet the demands of the students and re-open the university. We equally demand that the Amosun government stops its attack on the democratic rights of the students. We also demand the recall of over 2000 students who have dropped out of OOU as a result of their inability to pay the outrageous fees.  We call for adequate funding of OOU and the entire education sector under a democratic control including elected representatives of education workers and students.  

We hold that the attack on the mass of students in Olabisi Onabanjo University is part of the anti-poor policies of the Amosun regime on education in the state. For instance, the Ogun State Cooperative College in Ijeja has been abandoned to a terrible state of neglect and rot to the extent that the students of the college did not benefit from even the minimal reduction of the fee hike that was recently pronounced by the government

It is equally on record that the state government is one of the states across the country that have refused to pay the 27.5% Teachers Peculiar Allowance since 2011, and N18, 000 minimum wages to both its primary and secondary teachers till date.

We urge the mass of working people and youth in Ogun state not to invest any illusion in the so-called opposition parties such as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP) as they share the same anti-poor neo-liberal policies of commercialization and privatization of education with the All Progressives Congress (APC). We call on the mass of students, workers and youth to join the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) in a mass-based campaign against all anti-poor capitalist policies of government not only in Ogun state but also nationally and across the country as part of the overall efforts  to build a working people’s political alternative.

Eko John Nicholas

State Secretary

SPN Ogun State