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Committee for a Workers' International

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Socialist Democracy March - April 2005

The Obasanjo government has revealed its iron-will to take its unpopular, anti-poor education commercialisation/ privatisation programme to a logical conclusion. This is more clearly demonstrated by the latest directive to authorities of higher institutions to commence immediately the process of transfer of student hostels to private estate managers, which indeed is a strategic step towards the wholesale privatisation of all public higher institutions of learning in accordance with the dictate of the government's imperialist motivated programme of neo-liberal capitalist reforms.

Already, authorities of some higher institutions have concluded preparation on how to implement this anti student policy. This has triggered some pockets of opposition being mounted by students across the country.

If implemented, the policy will inevitably take accommodation facilities out of the reach of overwhelming majority of students, mainly from poor working class backgrounds. It will also add to the increasingly unbearable cost of education without commensurate improvement in studying and living conditions on campuses, as the estate managers will naturally prioritise profit interest over the essential needs in the hostels.

In response to the looming attack, the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS Zone D, has come up with a comprehensive package of campaign against, not only the proposed hostel privatisation but also the entire unwholesome attack on education. As part of the campaign, NANS Zone D, at its senate meeting between February 5 and 6, 2005 at Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education Ijanikin, Lagos, scheduled March 16, 2005 as a DAY OF ACTION. This DAY OF ACTION, which is meant to protest the proposed privatisation of student hostels, poor funding of education, sub-standard living and studying conditions on campuses, education commercialization, victimization of student and worker activists, will include lecture boycotts, peaceful protests, massive distribution of campaign materials, public enlightenment activities, etc.

In preparation for the day of action, at least several thousands of leaflets and posters have been distributed by the NANS Zone D together with Education Right Campaign, ERC.

The effort of the NANS Zone D is commendable, but the DAY OF ACTION and other subsequent programmes should be made as part of activities to build a national movement of students and other progressive segments of the population, drawing on the experience of student struggles in the past, notably the 1978 "Ali-must-go" anti-education commercialisation struggles and a similar movement of the students in 1984. Therefore, the Zone D should start reaching out to the other zones of NANS and the new national leadership of the association in order to make the campaign assume a national character. They should canvass for a broader national day of action at a later date, if the other zones cannot join March 16 action. Of course, the campaign is expected to be a continuous exercise.

The DAY OF ACTION by NANS Zone D and the one expected to be declared by the national body of students, if well mobilised and properly coordinated, would send signals to government and authorities of institutions that the students’ movement would not watch helplessly a group of brigands stealing public properties in the name of privatisation. It would also reawaken the consciousness of the mass of students to the need to struggle against the education commercialisation policy of the Obasanjo government in particular and the entire IMF/World Bank inspired polices of deregulation of the oil sector and intermittent increases in prices of oil products, privatisation of key sectors of the economy, cut in spending on education, healthcare and other social necessities, the general economic hardship flowing from the so-called neo-liberal reforms and the urgent need for a political alternative.

To enhance the strength, potency and efficacy of the campaign, students alone must not be left with the struggle to save education. The youths, pro-masses organisations and the working people including the labour, the teaching and non-teaching staff must actively support the historic movement. The hostel privatisation and all forms of education commercialisation will add to the already outrageous cost of education. While the prevailing culture of victimisation is meant to create atmosphere of fear and the lack of will for resistance against anti student, anti-worker policies in our institutions.

Therefore, in pursuing the campaign, NANS should reach out to interest groups in the education sector (ASUU, NASU, SSANU, COEASU, ASUP, NUT, etc.), the labour (NLC, TUC, CFTU) and other sympathetic working people organisations on the need for collaborative efforts to defeat this and other policies of the government on education, including those affecting staff like the obnoxious, anti-union, trouble generating "no-work-no-pay" policy. More importantly, the Labour and the civil society groups should see hostel privatisation, education commercialisation and the entire struggles in the education sector a labour issue, as students are workers in training.

At the root of the systemic degeneration of the public education system in general and hostel facilities in particular is the deliberate under-funding of the sector by successive governments in Nigeria and especially, the inveterate anti-poor, pro-imperialist government of Obasanjo, done in order to create spurious arguments to justify the criminal transfer of public properties to themselves and their cronies in the guise of privatisation. It is common knowledge that Obasanjo, his vice, Atiku now have licenses to operate private universities!

Chronic under-funding, corruption, wastages, absence of democratic ethos amongst others have made public education system continuously endangered. These are some of deliberate machinations by government to prop-up the commercialisation and privatisation option, the beneficiaries of which are the same government officials and associates, responsible for running aground the public institutions. In spite of the enormous collectively owned wealth of the country, over the years, fiscal allocation to the education sector has witnessed a progressive decline. For instance, the budgetary allocation to education fell from 12.22% in 1985 to 4.6% in 2003, and barely 6% in 2005; whereas UNESCO recommends that developing economies like Nigeria should pursue a 26% minimum. As a consequence, educational facilities have collapsed greatly, standards have fallen and there is massive brain drain. An estimated 52% shortage of academic staff exists in universities alone. Not only that, access to educational facilities has been greatly reduced. Year in year out, while over a million students sit for the university matriculation examinations, existing universities have capacity to absorb only a paltry 150,000! By 2010, only a token 0.16 million of the qualified 6.3 million students or a mere 2.4% will get access to university education.

While population of school age youth is exploding, the government is stubbornly unwilling to expand public educational opportunities. In the few institutions that still exist, living and learning conditions are pitiable. Faced with this contrived collapse in the public education system, many parents think of turning to the private sector to educate their children, but obviously most cannot afford the huge school fees the profit-driven private institutions charge.

Experience has shown that the struggle to save the education system is ultimately a political struggle. Even if Obasanjo and the ruling capitalist clique are compelled to beat a retreat on the latest issue of hostel privatisation and other issues, this does not foreclose the reintroduction of similar or more terrible policies in the future. These anti-poor policies are not being implemented by accident or because Obasanjo has 'bad advisers'. Contrariwise, they form the very essence of governance under the prevailing neo-liberal capitalist arrangement. The struggle against hostel privatisation, education privatisation and commercialisation, etc must therefore be linked inevitably with the struggle to kick out the incurably anti-poor, capitalist government of Obasanjo and the crystallization of a political alternative in the form of a workers' and poor peasants' government built on a democratic socialist foundation. To this end, NANS needs also to join the demand for labour and its civil society allies that have been active in waging struggles against government's anti-poor policy in the oil sector and the economy to crystallize into a political alternative to the Obasanjo government and its variants in the other dominant bourgeois parties. To be able to attract the support of the mass of poor working people, such a structure must be based on a clear anti-capitalist programme.

Socialist Democracy March - April 2005