Text of Press Statement by the Nigeria Labour Congress, Oyo State Chapter on the continued incarceration of labour leaders in Agodi Prison, Ibadan

WE REMAIN UNDAUNTED !

AN APPEAL TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC TO PREVAIL ON THE SENATOR AJIMOBI-LED OYO STATE GOVERNMENT FOR THE IMMEDIATE AND UNCONDITIONAL RELEASE OF THE SEVEN (7) INCARCERATED LABOUR LEADERS AND TO RESCIND THE DECISION TO SELL-OFF  PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN THE STATE UNDER THE PRETENCE OF THE ACCLAIMED  ANTI-PEOPLE POLICY OF  PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP, PPP.

Protocols:

Members of the State Executive Council of our Union, Dignitaries from the National Headquarters of our Union, members of civil society organisations here present, respected members of our Union and ladies and Gentlemen of the press.

Introduction:

It is with a heavy heart that we address you at this press conference organised by the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC the Oyo State council to disabuse the minds of the general public over the 7 count trumped-up charges instituted by the Oyo State Government against some leaders of our Union who were detained in the police custody from 2nd June to the early hour of 3rd of June, 2016 before they were taken to Magistrate court in Iyagangu  from where  they were moved to Agodi Prison where they are currently incarcerated.

Our union is aware that the on-going drama of arrest, arraignment and subsequent incarceration of our union leaders is just a deliberate and dubious gimmick by the Oyo State government to intimidate and weaken the determination of our union to lead the entire suffering members of the working people in the state in a struggle to halt the implementation of the anti-people decision of the Oyo State Government to sell-off some of the leading public schools in the state under the pretence of an oppressive and exploitative policy of public private partnership, PPP.

Going by this understanding our union will like to inform the general public, particularly parents and Guardians of students in public schools in the state that we remain undaunted and resolute! No amount of arrest and prosecution of our leaders in any guise will deter members of our union from continuing the struggle to rescue our public schools from being sold to few rich sharks and bucanners who are only interested in the acquisition for the self-serving private profit motive.



Our Take on the Government Decision to sell-off public secondary schools in Oyo state
Returning schools to the former owners, Alumni Associations, Individual Alumnus and Alumnae, stakeholders etc as being claimed by the Oyo State government is tantamount to the privatization of education, which in principle and practice, negates and contradicts the resolution of the UNESCO to which our country is a signatory. Privatization of education will no doubt amount to commercialization of education which will definitely sooner or later take education beyond the reach of children of the poor masses of Oyo State. Thus deviates from the UBE Act signed into law by the Federal Government of Nigeria in 2003. According to this law every child must be accorded the right to education without any form of hindrance under whatever guise!

We also believe that privatization of schools is also capable of widening the gap between the rich and poor with high risk to increase the existing class rift, social disharmony and social menace in the country. Thus, threatening social cohesion which is the whole essence of public education.

Our Union absolutely agree to the fact that the public educational system in the state as well as other part of the country is today enmeshed in threatening Crisis, characterized by inadequate facilities for proper learning, teaching and  research such as books, laboratory equipment etc.

Things are so bad that many primary and secondary schools in the state cannot boast of chairs/tables. Many schools often go on compulsory holidays whenever there is a little rainfall because classrooms are often turned into emergency swimming pools due to open roofs. The teacher/pupil ratio is unwholesome owning to lack of adequate manpower. In many cases, there are close to 200 pupils in single classroom on average with a teacher who in most cases are responsible for a minimum of six classes across various levels.

Under such circumstances, proper students monitoring through assignments, tests, continuous assessments etc have been jettisoned because of the huge volume of scripts teachers have to contend with. This entire crisis bedeviling public education in the state is compounded by the fact that meagre salaries of workers which include both the teaching and non-teaching staff are being denied for 5/6months.

Having public schools suffering from these enormous crises across the state, it is expected as is often argued by protagonist of privatizing public schools in the state that the standard of education has fallen and indiscipline and moral laxity in school has been in the increase in the recent years.

Why This Terrible Situation?

It is the opinion of our Union that the major cause of the crisis that has engulfed the education system in the state today is not the decline in discipline and commitment on the side of either parents or Teachers as often advanced in various propaganda of the government and its apologists.

As  a matter of fact, the prevailing, poor academic performance, immorality and indiscipline in schools today, which protagonists of privatization of schools often use to justify their self-serving motive to sell-off public schools in the state are mere reflection of  corruption and moral decadence that is prevailing across the broad spectrum of the political class as it being exemplified by  neo-liberal economic policies like commercialization, privatization and underfunding of education and other social services like health, housing etc which has been the economic philosophy of both the past and present governments in the state regardless of political party affiliation.

Take for instance, the percentage budgetary allocation to education in state has always been falling far below the 26% minimum UNESCO recommended for developing countries like Nigeria. It is this chronic underfunding of education in the state that is largely responsible for cause of the crisis that bedevils the education sector in the state today.

The Way Forward

Our Union will like to use this medium to reinstate our unrepentant opposition to the prevailing argument often peddled by the government spokespersons and apologists that returning of schools to mission or private ownership is the only way to end the crisis bedeviling  the education sector in the state.

It will be necessary to remind the public that, schools were taken-over from private owners and missionaries after initial period of impressive management and standard in 1975 when it was obvious according to Edit No.14 of 1975,  that the Owners charged exorbitant fees and did not give quality education to students. School buildings were of substandard structures, unqualified teachers were employed, teaching and learning materials were inadequate while classrooms were over-crowded.

Going by this background it is obvious that, the missions and private owner of schools were increasingly finding it difficult to cope with a far smaller size of school as far back as 1975. This is why we conclude that missions will not be able to possess the capability to manage the schools that are much larger and costlier to manage than they were in 1975. Therefore, placing the ownership of schools in the hands of missionaries to today will result to charging of exorbitant fees as we have been seeing in cases of schools established by religious organizations across the country and in the process take education away from the reach of the common people.

It is in the consideration of these inevitable consequences that our union continue to call on the parents, guardians and the general public to prevail on the state government not to abdicate its constitutional responsibility of provision of free, qualitative and quantitative education for every citizen in the state by trying to privatize public schools under the pretext of PPP or returning of school to their former owners.

The argument that the missionaries entirely owned the schools in the first instance is unpatriotic and conscious distortion of history and facts. Existing records shows that various communities freely donated lands upon which the missionaries built the schools. This therefore shows that the impression that missionaries are the former owners is quite untrue. The original owner remains the entire people of the state especially when the lands were donated on the basis of patriotism for a public use.

This is why our union in its bid to continue to defend the economic rights of the Nigerian working masses in which our members are major stakeholders use this occasion of this press conference to urge all individuals or religious organizations who may be interested in buying over the public schools to immediately rescind the decision.  We Say Oyo Public schools are not for sale! 

It is also noteworthy to bring to public knowledge that it was based on this background and principled decision of members of our union that we organized a peaceful and non-destructive mass action on the 1st June, 2016 to the venue of the a kangaroo stakeholders meeting where the Oyo state government and its allied private sector mafia were finalizing strategies on how to share off all the government owned secondary schools in Oyo State, which ordinarily are our patrimony amongst themselves in the name of Public Private Partnership(PPP).

It was a peaceful mass action. Massively covered by the media under the full protection of men and officers of the Nigerian Police Force without any record of a single individual beaten or properties damaged, which was why no single individual was arrested on the day of the peaceful action. The blackmail by the government that members of our union destroyed properties worth millions of naira is a ruse and malicious! It is a deliberate and conscious gimmick by the state government to undermine the massive sympathy our campaign against privatizing public secondary school is enjoying amongst the good people of Oyo State.

The facts behind the Granting of bail and subsequent incarceration of our Leaders at Agodi Prison

At this point, we deem it necessary to put the records straight before generality of Nigerians concerning the continuous incarceration of our leaders at the Agodi Prisons, Ibadan, despite the bail granted them by the trial Chief Magistrate handling the case.

We must state that despite the opposition by the counsel to the Oyo State government and the Police in the case against the grant of bail in the case, the Chief Magistrate agreed with our team of lawyers that the allegations against our leaders were bailable and admitted each of our leaders to bail in the sum of N200,000.00 with two sureties in like sum, who must show evidence of being Oyo State Government taxpayers, whose copies of work and national identity cards must be attached to the bail bond. Members of our union voluntarily made themselves available as sureties.

While our lawyers were filling the bail bonds, we got a message that the Secretary to the Oyo State Government, who incidentally is one of the complainants in the case was together with the Chief Judge of Oyo State.

In the course of investigating this claim we found out that that the Secretary to the State Government actually visited  the Chief Judges office. At that point, we became apprehensive, but our lawyers assured us that the Chief Judge and the Chief Magistrate before whom the case is were men of impeccable characters who cannot be bought over or influenced.

Our fears were however confirmed when the bail bonds were sent to the magistrate and he turned it down on the ground that the police prosecutor should first verify the addresses of the sureties, a condition that was not part of the original condition of bail given by the magistrate.

We immediately made a 18 seater air conditioned bus available for the verification of addresses, but to our further chagrin, the police prosecuto appointed for the duty said he could not go alone and that he wanted to call another police personel from the next court to follow him. He thereafter DISAPPEARED as if he was under instructions!

We, together with our lawyers embarked on massive search around every part of the courts compound for the police officer without success, only for him to resurface after over two hours, around five minutes to 4pm, when it was obvious that the Magistrate would close from court at 4pm!

At that point, it dawned on us that the that the game plan was to ensure that our leaders stayed the weekend and beyond at Agodi Prisons, so as to prevent any form of opposition to the rescheduled planned stakeholders meeting slated for Tuesday, wherein the Ajimobis government and his collaborators in the plan to share public secondary schools amongst themselves and take away public education from the children of the poor working people of Oyo State.

Stemming from the above, we are not unmindful of the fact that the Oyo State government, in concert with other arms of government may be planning bring up other impediments to the perfection of bail of our leaders, we want them to know that we are equally ready for them.

We hereby use this medium to inform all public sector workers of Oyo state, market men and women, drivers, artisans and all other persons whom this wicked policies are targeted that as from Monday, 6th of June, 2016, until whenever our leaders are released from custody, all public sector workers should resume at the Oyo State Magistrate Court Complex, Iyaganku

Our Demands:
*Immediate and unconditional release of the NLC chairman and the 6 other labour leaders
*Immediate withdrawal of all trump charges leveled against the incarcerated labour leaders
*Government must rescind the decision to sell-off ANY public schools in the state
*Proper and adequate funding of the education sector including payment of living wages and other incentive for educational workers
* Immediate Payment of 6months outstanding salaries and all pension arrears
Thanks you for the audience.
ALUTA CONTINUA VICTORIA ACERTA
Comrade Bosun Daramola Comrade M. A Badiru
(The Treasurer and Acting Chairman of the Congress)