The executive members of the students' union government of Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, have directed students of the institution not to pay more than half of their school fees for the current academic session. This is coming just as they decry the poor state of infrastructure of the state-owned school.
The union also called on the President Goodluck Jonathan, the Senate president, traditional rulers, and other well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on the state governor, Adams Oshiomhole, to reduce the fees currently charged by the school authority.
The students' body made the call over the weekend while addressing journalists at the press centre of the state chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists over the dearth of infrastructural facilities and the high fees they are made to pay in the school.
In a press statement jointly signed by Itote Damis, Osaguona Johnbosco, the union's president and secretary general respectively, the students expressed disappointment over the recently announced 300 per cent increase in the schools fees.
The students' leaders also condemned the sudden increase of their fees from N18, 000 to N62, 000, which they alleged had forced a good number of students to abandon their studies in the university as their parents could no longer afford to pay the new rates.
They noted that the school is located in a community where majority of the people are peasant farmers, petty traders, commercial motorcyclists, and pensioners who could barely afford three square meals, hence such fees would not be affordable.
Further raising more complaints, the students union stated that "to worsen the situation, some parents and guardians of the students have had their shops and kiosks demolished by the Major Lawrence Oloye-task force set up by Governor Oshiomhole in the name of beautifying the city, thereby subjecting them and their children to abject poverty and untold hardship."
Deliberate attempt
They, therefore, accused the state governor of "a deliberate attempt to deprive Nigerians, particularly Edo State indigenes of their educational rights, an action which clearly contradicts his promise during his electioneering campaigns in 2007 to make education free at all levels.
"It is disheartening to note that since the assumption of office as the governor of Edo State, Ambrose Alli University has not received a carton of chalk from Governor Oshiomhole, let alone witnessed any infrastructural development by his administration," they said.
Quoting chapter 4 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, which places the responsibility of providing food, shelter, security, education, and others on of governments at all levels, the students averred that the state government is expected to "provide adequate infrastructure, teaching aids and facilities, enough manpower (academic and non academic), and adequate subvention for Ambrose Alli University and other state owned citadels of learning, as part of its social services being rendered to the people."
They, therefore, called on the governor to "reverse the tuition fees of Ambrose Alli University within the next two weeks; failure to do so, the Union will not hesitate to do everything within its power to legally drive home its demand."
It is one thing to avoid speaking ill of the dead. It is another to falsify history
1. Among others, all the UPN Governors of that era went to jail. They were convicted for corruption by special military tribunals during the Buhari-Idiagbon era. Some spent a large part of their jail time in hospital. Professor Ambrose Alli (RIP) of then Bendel state was among them.
In addition to jail time, many had to cough up funds. In Alli's case, many of his praise singers (including some from his own clan) abandoned him in his hour of need. For whatever reason, Chief Gabriel Igbinedion was among the few who went to his rescue and helped him pay back some fines. All of this is on record.
2. Many of the UPN Governors and other politicians sent their children to school abroad (even then). Including Jakande. For example, you can check the records at the elite French University (Sorbonne)
3. WHile the concept of Free Education was a crowd puller, economic and political realities dictated its success and ultimate viability. No welfare program in any country can succeed if the government has no means of supporting and sustaining it, amongst competing priorities.
All of these discussions are meaningless without contextualising national discussions about revenue allocation formulae, and the way such formulae changed over time including the huge revenue base created by the British from World War 2 Cocoa reserves - which is what powered the Western regions free education program in the fifties. If derivation were to be the sole principle behind revenue allocation that would be quite a different kettle of fish from say, if "land mass" were to be the sole decider. Then we have equality of states, population etc... all of which place smaller states at a disadvantage
Starting from the refusal of the West to share its resources with new referendum created Midwest region, draw a graph of the revenue stream to Bendel beginning in 1963 until 1981. It rose with the Oil bubble, peaked in the seventies, then crashed when others wanted to feed from the same trough. It did not help matters that UPN Bendel (under Alli) was at loggerheads in court with the NPN federal govermnent (under Shagari).
By the time the late Abel Guobadia became Bendel Commissioner for Education, in 1984 (under Jerry Useni), Bendel state had about 900 mostly non-viable secondary schools (inherited from Alli) which he had to trim down to 300 viable consolidated entities because the populist largesse of the previous era was not sustainable under the new revenue allocation scheme.
It may interest you to know too that throughout the Buhari-Idiagbon regime, there were only 18 Federal Ministers. The 19th state had no ministerial representation in the Buhari government from Jan 1984 until August 1985. That state was Bendel.
It took time for even the 1999 constitutional 13% derivation formula to kick in because of the relative powerlessness of the oil minority states and mischief in the center. And we have seen the politics of offshore resources, the dramatic change of fortunes between Cross River and Aqua Ibom on the basis of reallocation of oil wells. Ditto the "fight" (since the eighties) between oil Bendel and Ondo states over oil wells. I have not even yet factored in the theft of resources by so called South South politicians and Governors in the last 12 years.
Take UNIBEN for example. It started out as a State University in the face of hostile opposition from some big geoethnic blocks. When Bendel later realized it was draining resources needed for other purposes, they handed it over to the feds who until then were only pumping money into older so called federal institutions that were primarily looking after some geoethnic groups. But less than five years later the same Bendel set up a brand new state university with no clear idea of how it would be sustained indepedently well into the future. The same can be said about technical institutions created at Usen more recently etc...
Here we are today in military created Edo state, after the "loss" of Delta state contributions to our "allocation" (in 1991) expecting free education with no taxes and little federal allocation with a huge overhead for the civil service. This is a state that has natural gas, oil, ports, timber, tourist potential, human resources etc... in which no one has invested for economic development or whose resources are being tapped to support projects in other states.
A society that has no developed natural resources just sitting there for the picking cannot survive without taxes in one form or another. But in Nigeria we have this mentality where we like to be provided free infrastructure and amenities but detest taxes/fees. Alumni do not recycle their resources to their various alma mater. Lecturers do not compete for grants.
Meanwhile many states (like Edo) have huge overheads and we pretend as if it is no big deal. In some states nearly 90% of revenue goes into overhead. How do you then provide for other needs without taxes, just waiting for declining allocation from ABuja which for political reasons will not develop your ports, airports, gas reserves and other resources? Even the recent state bond scheme has its long term dangers.....
Simplistic analyses will not cut it. This is a labyrinth.
The late Professor Ambrose Ali was elected on the platform of Awolowo's party, the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) and education was free for all. Free education at all levels was on their party's manifesto. Michael Ajasin, Bola Ige, Lateef Jakande, etc did it in their respective UPN-controlled states too. It was a miracle. Bendel, Oyo, Lagos, Ondo, Ogun, etc enjoyed it. The money budgeted for the states were not sent to foreign banks. In most cases, it was for the people and used for the people. I cannot think of any of those UPN-controlled states where students protested against hike in tuition fees at their university then. Hmmm, how many politicians sent their children to foreign schools then?
The corruption rate of today was not in then. It was after their era that the military came back to power to democratize corruption in the name of checking corruption among politicians in Nigeria. Prof. Ali and associates had vision for Nigeria and many of what they imagined then are being put into practice by countries with visions around the world today, (sadly not in Nigeria) but today, Nigeria has leaders without a vision, eg Adam Oshiomole.
Most Nigerians today have traded education and vision for money.
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