ERC-LASU WELCOMES STUDENTS BACK ON CAMPUS

EDUCATION RIGHT CAMPAIGN LAGOS STATE UNIVERSITY (ERC-LADU)

WE URGE THE NEWLY ELECTED STUDENTS UNION EXECUTIVE AND THE PARLIAMENTARIAN NOT TO FORGET THEIR ROLE AS THE VANGUARD OF THE STUDENTS AND TO PLAY THEIR ROLE EFFECTIVELY WITHOUT COMPROMISE

Education Rights Campaign Lagos State University Branch (ERC LASU) welcomes all students back  to campus and wish everyone a productive academic session. The Education Rights Campaign is a students’ vanguard organization that fights for the rights and welfare of students and staff. We agitate for free and proper funding of the education sector. We believe that our education system can be well funded and free at all levels, if Nigeria’s resources are properly managed and judiciously used.

But this is not the case at the moment. While Nigeria is rich enough to fund public education, much of the resources are stolen by corrupt politicians in power. This and the profit-first character of Nigeria’s capitalist economy are the reasons public education as well as other social services are on the verge of collapse.  This is why side by side with fighting against fee hike and education underfunding, the ERC campaigns for the coming to power of a workers and poor peoples’ government armed with a programme to end corruption by placing the key sectors of Nigeria’s economy under workers democratic control and management linked to Socialist plan of production  to ensure that peoples’ needs are met. ERC also extends its struggle to accommodate workers’ rights and we fully oppose any form of intimidation, oppression, harassment, victimisation of workers and students of this esteemed institution.

As we just started a new semester, we are reminding you of our unfinished struggles against several unpopular policies of the management and the government that pose  threat to our fundamental rights and academic freedom such as:

*Irrational hike in school fees, and the discrepancy between stream one and stream two students,

*The crazy increment of acceptance and medication fees

* Inadequate provision of lecture rooms

*Irrational harassment of students by school marshal and imposition of primitive dress code

* And lastly, the re-introduction of 5,000 naira fine for late course registration.

These are unfair, unjust, and exploitative  policies ERC-LASU therefore calls on the student populace to mount pressure on the leadership of the students union to take practical step to resist these anti-student and anti-poor policies of the management. We call on all students not to keep mum over these issues but keep voicing out at every unfavorable policies and anti-poor policies by the management until victory is certain.

We urge the leadership of the union should not alienate itself from the challenges, aspirations and yearnings of the students. A congress of students, which should be regular, is urgently needed to allow students voice their opinion on the issues and map out a collective plan of action to defeat these anti-students policies.

We demand that the 5k fine of late course registration should be scrapped because it is unnecessary and pure exploitation. Likewise the Acceptance and medical fee should also be  reversed. The recent increment in the acceptance and medical fee from 20 thousand and 10 thousand to 30thousand respectively is inhumane and pure exploitation to make Education  inaccessible, and far from being  appealing to our youths who have come under the double Jeopardy of bad economy and unfair fees increment regime by the university administration. It is crystal clear that's commercialisation of our education is the order of the day and we firmly stand against all forms of commercialisation of our education and unjust increments of any fees whatsoever.

And to our freshers on campus, we encourage you all to participate actively in the students’ movement. We advise you to embrace progressive and radical students’ unionism that would make you relevant and productive to the school community and to the society at large. We encourage you all to unite with us and join hands to resist every injustice, oppression, and exploitation happening around you, both on campus and outside. Be guided and be inspired by that famous statement of Martin Luther King Jr: "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". We should not be passive absorbers of all sorts of deceptions to dehumanize our humanity; rather we should see ourselves as fellow active participants in the struggle for a better society and a free qualitative education for all.

Active participation in student movement is everybody’s rights and not privilege because we shall all be the beneficiaries of the victories and success of the struggles and just like one of the statements of Thomas Paine, as I quote, ”Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.” Be an active participant in the LASU student’s movement, and never be passive observers. The struggle is yours, the struggle is ours, and we all stand to benefit from it.

JOIN ERC LASU

The ERC is a campaigning platform formed by the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) to organize students and education workers to fight fee hike, education underfunding, attack on independent unionism and democratic rights, victimization of students and staff activists. We also believe that while concessions can be won through struggle,  a genuinely free and functional public education system is only possible on a sustained basis by putting an end to capitalism and enthronement of a workers and poor people’s government based on socialist policies. To join the ERC, please send a whatsapp message to: 07033744601, 07013993348

Aluta Continua!

Victoria Ascerta!

Solidarity! Forever!!

Signed

ERC LASU