NO TO PROSCRIPTION OF ULSU!
Students of University of Lagos in their numbers showed that the fighting spirit is not dead in the hearts of students, particularly in Unilag -as many, including the school authorities had thought-, when they protested against in April, under the banner of the University of Lagos Students Union.
The grouse of the students was that while examinations were fast approaching, power outages and lack of water was the norm. The excuse that there is an energy crisis in the country is one that does not hold water.
First, the university’s massive generating power plant runs on diesel and not on gasoline, as Comrade Tobi Ojo, the ULSU Financial Secretary pointed out in an interview with Socialist Worker. Second, the university had paid for a brand new generating set which was to have been delivered since last year. Only those in authority know why it has not been supplied by their contractor.
ULSU made frantic efforts to get management to address the situation to no avail. Earlier last year as well, it had mobilised the students to protest poor hygienic situations with old beddings resulting in a spread of bedbugs. The university’s response was to close the school.
This time around, the university is attempting to wield its big stick even more. After bringing in armed policemen and closing the school. It has declared a proscription of the students’ union and a regimented process for the return of students back to school.
This includes the signing of a reabsorption oath as part of an indemnity form, before resumption on May 2 and having examinations a week after. As the Speaker of ULSU, Comrade Adeyanju Olanipekun told Socialist Worker, “this is outright injustice and has to be resisted”. Unilag has a long history of repression by the authorities. ULSU was banned for about a decade before its recent reinstatement after students struggle to have it back.
But the school also has a rich history of resistance against all forms of oppression and injustice. More than ever before, there is the need to defeat this ploy of the divide and conquer, through mass action. The struggle at hand is also not just one for Unilag students. Solidarity with ULSU is needed from all students’ unions, trade unions and the civil society movement.
Unilag students have dared to struggle and thus have dared to win. We must all raise our voices to loudly say: NO TO THE PROSCRIPTION OF ULSU!
by Baba Aye
