ERC Demands Re-opening of OAU and Appointment of Acting Vice Chancellor

ERC Demands Re-opening of OAU and Appointment of Acting Vice Chancellor

In the aftermath of the dissolution of the Governing Council of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) by the visitor to the University, the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) demands the immediate re-opening of the University so that academic activities can resume.

We also wish to state clearly that the appointment of an Acting Vice-Chancellor should be done immediately to ensure the smooth running of academic activities in the University. We demand that a democratic and transparent process that actively involves all categories of staff, students, parents and community members be instituted immediately to avoid such occurrence in the future. We also demand that the demands of members of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) for payment of backlog of arrears of allowances must be met immediately.

We wish to acknowledge that the dissolution of the Governing Council by the Federal Government is in response to the agitation of both workers and students who occupied the Senate Building of the University since June 6 to protest the corruption of the out-gone Vice-Chancellor, the illegality in the process of appointing a new Vice-Chancellor and the culpability of the dissolved Governing Council in this corruption. As a result, many workers and students simply went on wild jubilation as soon as the dissolution was announced. However the ERC must make the point that the dissolution even while it has brought a deserved end to the ignominious rule of the corrupt Governing council cannot resolve any of the fundamental issues.

The root cause of the crisis gripping OAU is government neo-liberal anti-poor education policy and the undemocratic administration that has been established to drive these policies. Therefore in dissolving the council, no one should be deceived that government’s aim is to resolve the crisis in favour of workers and students. Rather the aim is to remove a council that had become too discredited in order to replace it with another that would essentially carry out the same anti-poor and anti-worker education policies.

For instance, it is an incontrovertible truth that the undemocratic process of appointment of the Vice Chancellor which was manipulated only reflects similar undemocratic process through which the Senate and Governing Council - two main decision making organs of a University- are constituted. In every University you go too, the Governing Councils are constituted in such a way that government and business interests are given more priority over and above the members of the University community. To show how undemocratic the entire system is, students are not even considered important enough in a University environment to have their representatives in an organ of their University where decisions that could make or mar them are taken.

This example shows that the entire University system is rotten. Therefore, what students and the workers unions should be demanding at the moment is the full democratization of the decision making organs of the University including the Senate and the Governing Council to allow the full participation of adequate numbers of elected representatives of students and staff in these bodies. Only this can provide a democratic basis for the appointment of Vice Chancellors and other principal officers while ensuring that students and staff voices are heard at all times.

In the same vein, the ERC calls for the immediate investigation of the members of the dissolved council and the entire University administration by anti-corruption agencies and their prosecution if found guilty of the multiple allegation of corruption that workers and students have leveled against them. In essence, we are demanding a transparent comprehensive probe of the university’s internally generated revenue, the disbursed NEEDS assessment funds, the incomes and expenditures of the NUGA 2014 games (from which O.A.U have been presently banned on the basis of financial corruption), grants, funds and Federal Government’s allocations. This must be to ensure that whichever funds that have been siphoned are recovered and used for the developmental projects they were meant for.

The Federal Government should also see to the reinstatement of all politically victimized students. For example, Olawale Owolabi was suspended in 2011 following peaceful protests to resist the 1000% increment in acceptance fee and has since then been on indefinite suspension. Presently, some student activists on the same campus have had their e-portal access pages illegally, autocratically locked-up for some months by the Registrar without presenting any offences that they have committed.

The Federal Government should also ensure the proper funding of the education sector and meet the 26% UNESCO recommendation for budgetary allocation to the education sector side by side with democratization of decision making processes to avoid the occurrence of this kind of crises in the future.