"REINSTATE FUTO 6 NOW; THEY ARE ACTIVISTS, NOT CRIMINALS" ANSA Cries Out

*ALLIANCE OF NIGERIAN STUDENTS AGAINST NEOLIBERAL ATTACKS (ANSA)*


*REINSTATE FUTO 6 NOW; THEY ARE ACTIVISTS, NOT CRIMINALS*

The Alliance of Nigerian Students against Neoliberal Attacks (ANSA) condemns with utmost vehemence, the expulsion of six student activists of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO). We consider as ruthless, despotic and unacceptable, the use of deplorable machinations of vindictive highhandedness to subvert legitimate demands of students of the institution, for the reversal of the undemocratic and arbitrary increment of fees. We forthwith, seize this medium to join the mass of students of the institution in calling for the immediate and unconditional reinstatement of the expelled activists and reversal of the increased school fees. We also demand the cancellation of all the illegal and arbitrary charges including the fraudulent course registration charges viz the dubious N10, 000 late registration fees.

 It would be recalled that the students of the institution, on the 17th of February 2017, protested the anti-poor and undemocratic fee increment as well as other fraudulent charges imposed by the management of the University. The students protested amongst many other illicit policies, the dubious course registration fees and the N10, 000 late registration fee.

To be more explicit on the alien policy of course registration fees, which may in fact be the first in the Nigerian publicly owned tertiary institution, we would attempt to do a little breakdown on how the Prof. Francis Eze led administration executes and distributes this wickedly orchestrated anti-poor vices.
The students of the University are made to pay the following course registration charges every semester which are in addition to the astronomically increased school fees;
*ENG103: N3, 000*; *ENG101: N3, 200*; *CHEM101: N2, 500*; *PHY101: N4, 000*; *BIO101: N4, 000*; *PHY207: N1, 600*; *MTH203: N1, 500*; *ENX: N3, 800* and the seemingly endless list goes on for all courses offered by the students of the said University.

The above charges of gross extortion are in addition to the acceptance fee which was increased from N25, 000 to N42, 500, late registration charges of N10, 000 and hiked medical charges from N1, 000 to N3, 000. All of these absurd fees are to be paid in complement to the astronomically hiked school fees which varies with the individual course of study. For instance; students of the department of Geology had their school fees increased from N30, 000 to N64, 100 in the same vein the overhead fee increment was outrageously hiked from N27, 000 to N55, 300.

These horrendous charges do not only violate the logic of economics, especially that of a population whose vast majority are either underpaid with N18, 000 minimum wage or owed backlog of salaries neither are they fair to the downtrodden majority who already consider a two square meal as an unaffordable luxury due to the biting recession that has in every way battered the pocket of the poor and subsequently bettered the lots of the rich/privileged few.
The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Francis Eze, immediately repressed the protest with heavily armed forces and closed down the campus in the most undemocratic manner even without attending to the real issues that incited the protests.

 Consequently, a vindictive panel was immediately put together with the aim of isolating for heavy victimization, the leaders of the legitimate protest. The kangaroo panel subsequently found them guilty on trumped up and baseless charges. The students, numbering up to six intelligent bright minds, were on this unfounded basis *EXPELLED*. The expelled students, all of whom are final year students and ex-Union Officers are: Onuoha Elvis; former Union Secretary General, Odunze Ebuka; former Welfare Officer, Ogbonna Collins; Former Union PRO, Mmadu Nnamdi; former Director of Transport, Ugwu Okey; Former Director of Sports, Megwa Kenneth; a Student Activist.

Needless to say, the torrents of attacks on the education sector and the age-long neglect of the sector had been anticipated especially with the ridiculous paltry allocated to the education sector.


 While the 2016 budget was tagged “Budget of Change” which eventually proved to be a horrific long chain wounded around the declining living standard of the poor. The 2017 budget nicknamed Budget of “recovery” has in reality strangulated the livelihood of the Nigerian masses through inane policies of mass penury brandished in programs of austerity and unprecedented hardship, with the education sector being the worst hit. The disgraceful allocation of a derogatory sum of 50billion naira as capital fund into the entire education sector has now proven to be nothing but a silent concession from the government for willing, thieving and undemocratic administrators of tertiary institutions to consider a neoliberal option of generating fund internally especially through overhead fee increment. They immediately seize this opportunity to as well impose several arbitrary charges that would, in the long run, find their ways into private pockets just like bulk of the increased fees. The fact that no increment in any of our tertiary has ever salvaged the obsolete condition of our campuses as only served as a bulwark to the claims that fee hike under any circumstance is a FRAUD, welfare and academic condition have in fact proved to be worse off under regimes of fee hikes. Most importantly, it further confirms the claim that our poor Nigerian parents are incapable of funding education. This is why the continuous silence of Staff Unions such as ASUU in the face of these horrifying attacks is downright condemnable.
Forthwith, we join the students of FUTO in calling on NANS, Students’ Unions, ASUU, Organized Labor and Civil Society Organization to support the campaign against this reign of terror inflicted on the Nigerian populace by the Prof. Francis Eze led administration of Federal University of Technology, Owerri.

 We reiterate our demand for the immediate and Unconditional reinstatement of the unjustly Expelled activists and the reversal of all outrageously increased fees back to Status Quo. We demand an end to the fraudulently imposed charges and we also maintain that management respects the right of students to protest policies that infringe on their very existence on campus.

 While we call for the upward funding of the education sector, we also call on Anti-Graft Agencies including the EFCC, to immediately probe into the spending and management of the funds generated or remitted into the purse of the institution.

Signed:
Sanyaolu Juwon

National Secretary

Adeyeye Olorunfemi                        
  National Coordinator