STUDENTS across the country, under the umbrella of Alliance of Nigerian Students against Neo-Liberal Attacks (ANSA), have set aside January 9 to protest the continued industrial impasse, which has kept Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) closed for seven months.
A statement issued by the group and signed by its Acting General
Secretary, Juwon Sanyaolu, said the “mother of all protests” against the
governments of Oyo and Osun states (proprietors of the school) would be
held simultaneously in both Ibadan and Oshogbo, the capitals.
According to Sanyaolu, there were indications that both governments
were considering increasing students’ fees as a way of resolving the
prolonged workers’ strike, and vowed that the group would mobilise all
students’ groups and activists in the country to resist the
implementation of any such plans.
The statement read in part: “The January 9 mass action is for the
outright rejection of imminent fee hike in LAUTECH, adequate funding of
the university, immediate reopening of the campus and unconditional
reinstatement of the student union on the campus.
“The declaration of the date as a day of mass action against the
aforementioned was a product of the congress of LAUTECH students, which
premised its conclusion of an imperative mass action on the need to
mobilise Nigerian students, youths and activists against further attacks
that would soon befall our entire tertiary institutions across the
country.
“The fact is that fee hikes in times past has never solved the
challenges of underfunding in LAUTECH or any other tertiary institution,
rather it has always deprived students from poor background access to
affordable education. We, therefore, maintain that fee hikes should
under no circumstance be substituted for adequate funding of education.”
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