OPEN LETTER TO HONOURABLE SANAI AGUNBIADE (MEMBER, LAGOS STATE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY, IKORODU 1 CONSTITUENCY) Hon. Sanai Agunbiade, Chairman, Committee on Judiciary, Ethics and Public Petitions, Lagos State House of Assembly, Alausa-Ikeja, Lagos. SAVE LASU, SAVE THE FUTURE First and foremost, I wish to congratulate you sir on your recent award as the Best Performing Male Legislator in the Lagos State house of Assembly by Gazelle News on 14th March, 2014 but a more honourable achievement would have been the reversal of the outrageous fee hike your party introduced in your alma mater, Lagos State University (LASU) where you bagged a law degree some years ago. This fee hike has denied thousands of youths including Lagosians access to university education since it was introduced in September, 2011. From a student population of 25,000 in 2011, LASU can only boast of less than 13,000 students in 2014. This represents a drastic fall in student enrollment and it demonstrates the damaging effect of the fee hike. Though I congratulate you but I will not join others in singing your praise, I will only do that when you get your colleagues in the Lagos State House of Assembly to compel the Governor, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola to reverse the fee hike. These youths are counting on you to at least tell your party, the All Progressive Congress (APC) the bitter truth, the negative effect of the fee hike. You graduated from LASU where you paid a meager N250 as school fees but now you and your colleagues think education is too cheap at N25,000 and the new fees of between N193,750 and N348,750 is justified. This position constitutes an injustice and a betrayal to children of the poor who came out en mass to vote for you in the last election. It is rather unfortunate and very annoying to hear your party leaders talk about their efforts at making education accessible to all regardless of economic and social background at every platform and forum while education in the only state-owned university in the Centre of Excellence is priced out of the reach of the common man. Just recently the national leader of your party and former Governor of Lagos State on Saturday, February 15, 2014 while receiving the award of Honorary Doctorate from the Njala University in Freetown, Sierra Leone goofed by saying that: We formed the APC so Nigerians from all walks of life and social station might gather under one tent to develop the nation on the basis of equity and shared prosperity. What we seek is a fair social compact so that we may avoid social calamity. A core element of our mission is to make all levels of education, from primary to university level, accessible to all people, regardless of economic circumstance. To survive in the modern economy, education is a must. As such, responsible leadership must view education as a public right and no longer a luxury to be enjoyed only by those with the money to purchase it for themselves. How best can your party demonstrate her commitment to education for all if not by making it affordable to all? I am sure you will agree with me that your national leader indeed goofed given the LASU case. Your party will not be doing us a favour by making education available and affordable to us because it is fundamentally our right. I am sure you have a number of youths from your constituency on your list of beneficiaries; those who look up to you for the payment of their school fees in LASU and other tertiary institutions across the country. Sir, this benevolence of yours will not be necessary if LASU fees is made affordable to all and you will as well be relieved of that extra financial burden. Posterity will judge you if you fail to do what is honourable. I noticed that since this fee hike crisis commenced you have been silent and have failed to make any public statement on it. I beg to ask are you more loyal to your party or your godfather (I am sure you know who am referring to) than the millions of Lagosians, the poor and the oppressed, the artisans and the peasants that gave you that political mandate? More is expected of you on this issue owing to your antecedent as a former President of the Lagos State University Students Union (LASUSU) where you were popularly called Comrade S. O. B.. I strongly believe that you still have an iota of obligation to current members of the Union that gave you the political tutelage and platform which served as foundation for your current political accomplishments. As a matter of fact you are one of the very few past union leaders I respect a lot having heard people sing praises of your achievement in office as LASUSU President but events in the past three years particularly since the introduction of the fee hike has compelled me to review my perception of you. I believe a true union leader will never abandon his constituency no matter what - your own people, the very people you once swore to protect with the last drop of your blood. These people must always come first. People before the party! If what you said at your last Account of Stewardship Ceremony held at Ikorodu Town Hall on 4th December, 2013 is anything to go by, then you are duty-bound to call for the reversal of the fee hike: My days as the Welfare Director of the Students Union of the Lagos State College of Education and later as the president of the S.U.G. of the Lagos State University, instilled in me a consciousness that every individual electorate has a legitimate expectation attached to his or her vote and expects nothing less than the fulfillment of those expectations from the elected representative.” (Championonlinenews 27th December, 2013). This statement confirms that you have a deep understanding of the constitutional rights of the youths and as such, as a lawmaker and legal practitioner, it is expected of you to uphold these rights among which is the right to education (affordable if not free university education). This is the time for you to do the needful. This is the time for you to come out clear and state your position on the LASU Fee Hike. This is the time for you to speak for the poor and the oppressed. I decided to write this open letter to you because of your continuous silence despite all efforts to get you to react to this. I have in the past two months tagged you in my several Facebook posts and photos on this issue with the intention of getting your attention but you deliberately ignored all my tags. But you are now quick to celebrate an award on Facebook which you know will get my attention as one of your friends on Facebook. In conclusion I will urge you to ponder on these wise words of Steve Biko, “Every onlooker is either a coward or a traitor” I will also remind you of our union motto: Dare to struggle, dare to win. We will not stop this campaign until the fee hike is reversed! Yours for a better LASU, Ewebiyi Keye James Former General Secretary, Lagos State University Students Union (LASUSU) 2010/2011.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 05:53:40 +0000
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