NO TO 34 – 60% SLASH!
FASHOLA & HIS GOVT SHOULD STOP THEIR FASCIST BRUTALITY OF STUDENTS
& ACTIVISTS!!
IMPLEMENT AGREEMENTS with LASU ASUU,
NASU, SSANU & NAAT Now!!
THE STRUGGLE FOR TOTAL REVERSAL OF HIKE IN FEES & ADEQUATE FUNDING
OF PUBLIC EDUCATION CONTINUES!!!
Press Statement
1.
The Joint Action Front (JAF) takes strong notice of the Press Conference
addressed by the Lagos State Government (LASG) on Wednesday June 11, 2014, through its
Special Adviser to the Governor on
Education, Mr. Fatai Olukoga, in which he declared that it had decided on a reduction of tuition in the Lagos State University
(LASU), “raging from 34 to 60 percent across
the different faculties and courses”.
2.
Also, we noted from Mr. Olusoga’s statement the fascist plot of the LASG to
criminalise the legitimate and commendable protests of LASU students, which he
characterised as “damage to property, blockage of
highways or other acts of public nuisance were punishable offences under the
criminal law of Lagos State”.
3.
JAF REJECTS the so-called 34 – 60% reduction in fees, or whatever it means;
which is a product of the struggle of LASU students and their allies (JAF,
workers and the public and the majority of the parents who are poor) for
REVERSAL of hike in fees in LASU since December 2011, when the fees were
arbitrarily imposed by the Governor Fashola anti-poor LASG.
4.
JAF insists on TOTAL REVERSAL of the wicked and anti-poor hike in fees and urge
parents, workers, current and potential students of LASU to intensify the
struggle to DEFEAT the wicked policy of pricing education out of the reach of
majority poor Nigerians and Lagosians.
5.
We recall our consistent positions that:
·LASU
students pay school fees ranging from N193,000 to N350,000, in a State where
the Government is defaulting in implementing the N18,000 National minimum wage.
Thus a so-called 34 – 60% reduction will still be unaffordable to most
Lagosians.
·The LASU
tuition fee, which used to be N25,000 had led to several thousand students
dropping out of the university and others offered admission not being able to
enrol into the university, because it is impossible for the poor parents and
Lagosians , who constitute more than 90% of those living below the poverty
line, to pay such outrageous fees.
·The LASG is
bent on its anti-poor Education policies, which explain why it refuses to
adequately fund public education, in order to make Lagos the exclusive preserve
of few Rich at the expense of the majority poor parents and students that will
never be able to pay.
FASHOLA
& HIS GOVT SHOULD STOP THEIR FASCIST BRUTALITY OF STUDENTS &
ACTIVISTS!!
6.
We salute the LASU students for their defiance to the undemocratic and unconstitutional repression of their legitimate
protests by the LASG. We note that the continuous
protests by the LASU students to Governor Fashola’s office have been peaceful
and JAF condemns the unprovoked brutality the Hakeem Odumosu trigger-happy
police bandits have inflicted on the students in the past one week.
7. JAF holds
that the resort by
Fashola’s LASG to brutality and fascist acts should not DETER the students from insisting on TOTAL REVERSAL of
the hike in fees.
IMPLEMENT AGREEMENTS with LASU ASUU, NASU, SSANU &
NAAT Now!!
8.
JAF finds unacceptable Mr. Olukoga’s expression in the aforesaid press
conference that LASU ASUU “should immediately
call off their strike and ensure the resumption of normal academic activities”. The striking unions in LASU, especially, ASUU, should not be expected to go back to work if the Lagos Government does not
meet the demands of the lecturers for just conditions of service and
implementation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreements, which the LASG has
endorsed
9.
As far as we in JAF are concerned, the issues in LASU remain:
· REVERSAL OF
HIKE in FEES
·Adequate funding
of the University System in line with subsisting Collective Agreements with
ASUU
·Removal of
Unjust Conditions of Service and Implementation of Agreements reached with all
the unions in LASU (ASUU, NASU, SSANU & NAAT).
DARE TO
STRUGGLE, DARE TO WIN!
ALUTA CONTINUA!!
Dr. Oladipo Fashina Comrade
Abiodun Aremu
JAF Chairperson
JAF
Secretary
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