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National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) “ZONE-D” NO TO HOSTEL PRIVATISATION!!!
NANS Zone D has launched an opposition to Obasanjo’s criminal attempt to sell our hostels to his friends a.k.a estate managers. Greatest Nigerian Students Arise! We are on the march again. The struggle against the privatization of student hostel is a generational task. It has to be waged with all determination. The defeat of this anti-poor policy will instill confidence in pursuit of similar struggles. Today we talk glowingly of the heroic movements of 1978 and 1984 by Nigerian students against some forms of attack on education. Those were historic movements in the annals of student struggles and they are inspirational to our generation.
ALL HANDS MUST BE ON DECK
Yes, on the surface, it is not every student that will be affected, as some institutions are not residential. But that should not be excuse for the students of the non-residential institutions not to join this important struggle. The hostel privatization is not an isolated policy; it is just an item on the agenda of crushing attack on public education as whole. A victory by the government would provide it confidence to put under the hammer, with no qualms, other infrastructure and facilities for essential services like health centers, libraries, laboratories, water supply, etc. This government is perhaps the most irresponsible in history. It is prepared to hands off provision of any form of social services to the citizenry. Yet the essence of any good government should be service to the people. But for a rabid pro-capitalist/ pro-imperialist government of Obasanjo the contrary obtains. Just take any index of standards of living: electricity, water, health, education, etc. you can at best find scarce commitment of the government to their provision, Nigerians have to acquire them on the basis of self help. Nigerians generate their electricity; he that does not possess the requisite financial muscle has to grapple with power outage for days with its attendant loss in businesses and unbearable existence in a hot and humid weather. Almost 70% Nigerians do not have access to portable water.
Thus, all hands must be on deck by the entire Nigerians against the policy. United, we are strong. But the struggle against hostel privatization must not be waged in isolation; it should be organically linked to the overall struggle against privatization/ commercialization of public education.
More importantly, students alone must not be left with the struggle, the youths, pro-masses organizations and working people including the labor and the teaching and non-teaching staffs must actively support the movement. Hostel privatization and other forms of education commercialization in the pipeline will definitely add to the already overburdening cost of education. Parents who are on the basis of the prevailing socio-economic policies forced to eke living will have to find means of paying much more if they are to retain their wards in the schools.
WHY THE SALES OF HOSTELS
The government says it has opted for privatization of hostel as a policy in order to make the hostels habitable and conducive for learning. We should ask them to tell that to the marines or toddlers. Truly, the conditions of our hostels are deplorable, but improving them is not the concern of the government. They intend to privatize the hostels in line with the IMF/ World Bank inspired neo-liberal policies of privatization and commercialization of education and other social services. The neo-liberal philosophy entails government’s handing off provision of social services. Nigeria is fabulously rich. Its external reserve recently hits $ 18.5 billion while the windfall from excess crude oil revenue is not less than $6 billion. But the government is committed to the satisfaction of the imperialist interest, the self enrichment of the various sections of ruling elites and wastages like globe-trotting, hosting of CHOGM, etc. A recent report by the World Bank reveals that 1% of the Nigerian population amasses 80% of the oil and natural gas revenue leaving the remaining 99% to rot in lurch without access to basic needs. Nigeria spends manifold of what is committed on the education and health to service the nation’s fictitious and odious debt. Thus education like other social services is under-funded despite the nation’s abundance wealth. That is why the chief crisis that bedevils education sector today is the crisis of under-funding, however compounded by the characteristic misappropriation of the little available resources by the various administrators at all levels in the sector.
The argument that hostel privatization will bring about improvement in the standard of hostels is not only fallacious but also dubious. Everybody knows that the first principle of private ownership of business is profit making. Pursuit of profits takes precedence over any other consideration. The private operators or estate agents will prioritize profit over the provision of essential needs of students like constant electricity, regular supply of portable water and good baths and toilets. Yet, students will be made to cough up outrageous charges or rent before getting accommodated. This prognosis is no figment of anybody’s imagination or “see nothing good” perspective; there are subsisting instances of what obtains in privately run hostels. Pay a visit to Omolayo Hostel and other private owned hostels around at the University of Ado-Ekiti and be welcome by eyesore! Their parlous state is more terrible than what obtains in most public owned hostels elsewhere in spite of charging higher than the latter. Shylock estate agents who fleece the student residents but return as service, sub-standard conditions of living run the various hostels at the Polytechnic Ibadan. Few months ago the students of Orisun hall Ibadan Poly went on rampage that had to necessitate police intervention having been without light and water for more than a week.
HOW TO FIGHT
A good hostel accommodation is not a luxury but an essential provision for quality education. It provides enabling atmosphere for productive study. Their standard has deteriorated over the years due to the under-funding of education and mismanagement by the school authorities. Moreover, the existing hostels are inadequate for the current student population. Hence, we must not only resist the unwholesome sales of the hostels, but also demand the improvement in their conditions, the provisions of more functional ones and building of hostel facilities in schools yet to have one. In the course of this struggle we must not only agitate for adequate funding of education but also the democratic management of the resources of our institutions with the elected representatives of students, teaching and non-teaching staffs.
The NANS Zone D have perfected plan to commence comprehensive mobilization for a DAY OF ACTION that will include lecture boycotts, rallies, protest/demonstrations, massive public enlightenment, mass distribution of campaign materials, etc. as part of activities to build a national movement of students with the support of youths, working people and other progressive segments of the population against the hostel privatization policy, the general education commercialization trend, victimization of union activists among other student demands.
Greatest Nigerian students this historic struggle has a ground rule. No public or private property, not even a blade of louvers, should be destroyed. Destruction has a way of detracting from the essence of the struggle with a cloud of moral question. Naturally, the ceaseless onslaught on the standards of living associated with the suffering in the midst of abundance and the blockade on the access to education in a natural resource-rich economy like Nigeria elicits genuine anger and frustrations from students and the masses. But such anger must be well channeled. Venting the anger on the private or public properties cannot earn us any viable reprieve but an avoidable distraction and a possible setback. Our struggle should be aimed at the issues among which have been earlier raised in this piece.
OUR DEMANDS REMAIN
• Implacable opposition to the unwholesome privatization of hostels • Building of more habitable student hostels • Adequate funding of education – Public Resources for public education • Democratic management of the resources of our institutions by committees comprising of the elected representatives of students, teaching and non-teaching staffs • No to victimization of student and worker activists • Immediate cancellation of the obnoxious anti-union ‘no work no pay’ policy • No to police posts on campuses.
………… Victory is certain!!!
Issued by National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) Zone D Thomas Sankara Students’ Union Building Federal University of Technology, Akure February 2005 COMRADE LAWAL DAMILARE {a.ka.NADECO} CO-ORDINATOR Tel: 234 -8028367237 E-mail: nanszonedsolidarity@yahoo.com
Posts: 38 | Registered: Nov 2003
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