Pacesetter movement PRESS STATEMENT The NUGA Games; Contempt and Sacrifices At last but unfortunately the right to host the NUGA game awarded to OAU in 2012, will eventually be hosted in February 2014. It is in no way an overstatement when we say “a man dies not necessarily when he stops breathing but when he keeps quiet in the face of oppression While we are not opposed to the NUGA games, we must equally take time to discuss the issue in its totality, the risks it poses to students, the safety of properties of students, and the threat of cult invasion without a democratically elected students’ union to counter this menace since it has been placed under an illegal continual proscription. The fact that the university management has selfishly concluded plans to force students to go back to their respective houses, shortly after they barely returned from an horrific strike which lingered for six months, is not only despotic but highly derogatory, to think of it, that students who are not supposed to be just the spectators during NUGA, but the actual reason for the organization of the game, that this same student would be forced out of campus is nefarious and pejorative. Students are going to be made to ply through the deadly Nigerian roads, with their bags on their heads for a game that is supposed to last just for ten days, this is not just illogical but insensitive. Why can’t the NUGA games be held at the end of the session? Why must students be exposed to the dangers of our roads? Why must students be forced to evacuate the accommodation for the athletes? The management, in their usual regalia of repression have militarized the campus in a bid to implement their unholy and highly malicious agenda to forcefully evict students out of the hall of residence they duly paid for It is a known fact that every student as part of their school fee pays 1000 naira sport fees, this fee as we know have not been used to facilitate any form of developmental project at the sport complex. Rather it was the NUGA allocation that was used for the partial revitalization of the extremely dilapidated complex. Let us assume the administration has been receiving this fee for a minimum space of 10 years, with an average number of 27000 students, it then stands to reason by calculation that the university management has about 270 million naira to account for. This means that the management can simply lodge these athletes at the university’s conference Centre and other hotels outside campus with this 270 million naira fund, in addition to the NUGA fund that was allocated to the university for this purpose, instead of sacrificing the lives, welfare, cum the general interest of student on the altar of extreme avarice and gross ineptitude. This is why we in PACESETTERS MOVEMENT, we resolutely declare our unwavering support for the generality of OAU students who are going to be the sacrificial lamb on the altar of utter giddiness and repugnant bungling in their clamor for a gathering of student to debate and proffer more intelligent way forward to these greatly disconcerting issues centered at radically opposing this neoliberal policies of the university administration. THE NEED FOR A VIBRANT AND INDEPENDENT STUDENTS’ UNION It’s been over three years since the management have denied greatest Ife their democratic right to association through the continual proscription of the union. The administration in its bid to continue in its tradition of unhampered looting and daylight rubbery without being questioned have decided to leave the union in a state of total abeyance. Development as we know in any sane society comes by the disclosure of internal contradictions through constructive criticism that have always been hinged on the need to disagree to agree, this despotic and extremely repressive management have shown to abhor the principles of collective bargaining and constructive criticism. Banning and union proscription are attributes of the military junta and has shown to be clearly alien to the basics and tenets of democracy. The fact that this archaic tradition continuously prevails in a supposed ivory of intellectual sophistication places a red alert on the charadic democracy we practice. How will students who are equally part of the six month struggle to save public education in Nigeria through adequate funding be assured of proper and democratic management if they are exempted from the whole process? Past experiences have shown that out of little allocated to this thieving and corrupt university officials, much is always stolen Power supply is getting more erratic as we can hardly boast of 10 hours of electricity as against the former ranges of 22 to 23 hours supply, water scarcity has reached its clime, our hostels are in a total debris yet students pay yearly hostel fee and maintenance . This is where the role of a vibrant and virile students’ union cannot be over-emphasized as it remains the only panacea for every of the aforesaid aggravated and organized crime as well as the dilapidated welfare of students. DEMANDS: NO TO FORCEFUL EVICTION OF STUDENTS OUT OF HALLS OF RESIDENCE, IT IS A VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS. DETAILED ELECTIONEERING TIME TABLE BY THE ELECTED ELECTORAL COMMISSION BEFORE NUGA. BAN MUST BE OFFICIALLY LIFTED AND THE RE-OPENING OF THE STUDENTS’ UNION BUILDING BE EFFECTED BEFORE NUGA. AN EMPHATIC NO TO MILITARIZATION OF CAMPUS.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 11:28:53 +0000
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