JAF Intensifies Mobilisation
PRESS STATEMENT
1. The Joint Action Front (JAF) held an
Expanded General Meeting on Sunday, July 21, with stakeholders in
the education sector, comprising students, civil society groups, zonal and
state branches’ representatives of the Academic Staff Union of Universities
(ASUU), Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), and College of Education
Staff Union (COESU).
2. The meeting was in furtherance of the
resolution by a previous meeting of JAF (held July 14th) for a
nationwide mobilization for NATIONAL PROTEST to save PUBLIC EDUCATION and to
rally Nigerians to join forces with ASUU and other unions in the academic
sector from primary to tertiary levels to compel the Federal and State
Governments to implement Collect Agreements on: Adequate Funding of Education,
Academic Freedom, and Autonomy in the administration and running of the tertiary
institutions in line with the demands of the stakeholders in the sector.
3. The meeting agreed on a TEMPLATE for
National Mobilisation and urged all stakeholders in the Education Sector –
parents, students, ASUU, ASUP, SSANIP, COESU, Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT),
Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU), Senior Staff Association of Nigerian
Universities (SSANU), professionals and workers unions (in the NLC and TUC) and
the oppressed masses of Nigeria to hold consultative and mobilization meetings
and rallies, in view of the PROGRAMME OF ACTIONS to be made public in the next
one week.
4. The meeting resolved that a NATIONAL
PROTEST to save PUBLIC EDUCATION has become inevitable. Thus JAF appeals to
Nigerians to see the current struggle by ASUU and the inconclusive struggles of
other unions in the Education Sector as the struggle of the Nigerian oppressed
masses, whose millions of children would be denied education and a future,
should the current trend of poor funding and neglect for Public Education by
Government at all levels, be allowed to continue.
5. JAF wishes to remind Nigerians of
the demands by the academic unions:
For ASUU, they are:
· “Failures
by Government (Federal and State) to fund facilities and infrastructure in the
universities, for the revitalization of the facilities and academic programmes;
·Failure
to IMPELEMENT the NEEDS Assessment Report as agreed in the Memorandum of
Understanding, January 24th 2012 between the Federal government and
ASUU on the standardization and effective running of the universities; and
·Failure
to pay legitimately earned allowances of the academic staffs”.
As for ASUP and SSANIP, their basic demands are:
· “The
continuing derogatory recognition of the National Board for Technical Education
(NBTE) as the regulatory body of Polytechnic education as against the agreed
creation of a National Polytechnic Commission,
· Non-Commencement
of the renegotiation of the FGN/ASUP Agreements as contained in the signed
Agreement,
·Non-Reconstitution
of the Governing Councils of the Federal Polytechnics,
·Failure
by the Federal Government to release the White Paper on the Visitations to the
Polytechnics, and
·Non-IMPLEMENTATION
of the Agreement on migration of Polytechnic Staffs at lower grades on CONTISS
15 Salary scale, and Failure by most State Governments to IMPLEMENT the
approved Salary package (CONPCASS).
6. The meeting appreciated the position of
JAF that its intervention in the crises in the education sector is part of its
consistent campaign for SYSTEM CHANGE and called on Nigerians home and abroad
to DARE TO STRUGGLE in order to DARE TO WIN.
FORWARD EVER, BACKWARD NEVER
DR. DIPO
FASHINA COMRADE
ABIODUN AREMU
JAF Chairperson JAF
Secretary
NB:
This is what we meant by SYSTEM
CHANGE:
“Nigeria is rich. The wealth
belongs to the people. Most Nigerians are hungry, have no jobs, no education,
no healthcare, no potable water, no electricity supply and no affordable
transportation. Most cannot feed their families or educate their children.
Those who are lucky to have jobs are not much different. They also cannot
afford a decent living for their families. On the other hand, there is a very
tiny group of Nigerians who have cornered the wealth that belong to the working
people and the poor, who are in the majority. They loot the treasury and use
their stolen wealth to sustain themselves in power through their political
parties. They use their power to get richer and richer when the poor get poorer
and poorer. This is the system of exploitation and oppression. It is the system
that brings out the army and the police to kill poor people when they protest against
oppression and exploitation. We want to change that system and replace it with
a system where the working people and the millions of people who are sufferings
under the system of exploitation will win power and ensure that the wealth of
Nigeria is used to ensure a good life for the majority of the people who are
now exploited and oppressed. System change is not replacing one exploiter’s
government by another exploiter’s government. It is replacing an exploiter’s
government by a people’s government to reorganise Nigeria and put an end to
exploitation and oppression”.
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