War On The Poor: Nigerian Political Leaders Firing Series of Shots
By Richard Inoyo.
4th December, 2023 | 1:40pm
According to a recent statistics published by _United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF)_ , “1 in 3 children across Nigeria are out of school children”. The revelation further showed that, “10.2 million of these out of school children exist at the primary level and 8.1 million at the junior secondary school (JSS) level1. Whereas, 12.4 million children never attended school and 5.9 million left school early.”
The bulk of that last statistics left the Universities, Monotechnic and Polytechnics, and this is largely due to the socioeconomic condition in the country.
What this means is that, Nigeria’s out of school children now account for 15% of the global population of all out of school children worldwide. What a feat on negative scale for a nation! That notwithstanding, the Federal Government through its yes-ma and yes-sir proxies are rolling out new policy to further worsen the Out of School Children Statistics of the Nation.
Some months ago, University of Lagos rolled out new school fee hike that crossed into and above N100,000 per academic session, and when the students protested against the school fee hike, they were attacked by poor policemen, who were directed and dispersed to break the protest without any question at the front gate of UNILAG. Many of the armless students were shot at with teargas cannisters, arrested and locked up by the Lagos Police Force sent in by the School Authority under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Education.
Just two days ago, the leadership of University of Calabar led by its Vice Chancellor, Mrs. Florence Obi joined the shameless community of leaders who once attended education when it was fairly affordable, but now turned around to ensure that university education becomes needlessly expensive and far more exorbitant for the poor to send their wards and children to tertiary education. As it stands today, the new school hike introduced by the Management of University of Calabar means that, parents and guardians have to raise between N110,000 and N155,000 to have their wards and children attend the university in the next session and that will be the fee from henceforth. Imagine family with three children in the university.
There is no where on earth any sane leadership can rationalize this new attack on poor people and the calculated erosion of access to national education for Nigerian family. One is foist to ask, what is the essence of leadership, or national governance? Is it to make life miserable for the poor and rob them to feed the opulent appetite of miscreants in power?
As absurd as this indefensible affront on access to education would sound, the university called it fee adjustment, how ridiculous can it get? Lest we forget in Finland and Cuba education is free up to Master’s Degree Level. You don’t pay a dime.
At _Citizens’ Solution Network_ we know the snake behind this hike in school fee, it is the Federal Government led by Bola Tinubu, a president that took the first shot at poor Nigerians when he pronounced policy on the day of his inauguration that saw the rise in the cost of PMS to over N591 per liter and the concomitant astronomical rise in the prices of things nationwide. We know that he is behind this latest school hike with his fraudulent and empty call for student loans. And his belief and confident is that the Nigerian police, army, airforce, navy and their sister arm-bearing organisations in care of public firearms and ammunition will open life fire on poor students and Nigerians if they decide to resist the school fee hike through picketing and protest.
My question therefore is this: “Is it what the Military and Paramilitary have been reduced to, to defend all affront against Nigerian citizens and to defend even the worst of evil policies against poor people struggling to even send their children to school amidst the excruciating economic pains that are all man-made?
Activist communities like Citizens’ Solution Network and _Citizens’ Assembly_ have taken the path of civility and not arm struggle, by using civil means to call on all levels of government and all public institution leadership to bring to an end the unholy war they have clandestinely declared on poor Nigerians which is now in the open that is bleeding the country’s poor via man-made orchestrated inflation and hikes, which is seen to be causing needless hardship and unnecessary pains.
It will be unfortunate if calls from civil organisations like mine isn’t heeded, because the alternative might see the emergence of a new generation of youths ready to die and willing to risk their lives invading military cantonment and armament centres to pick up public firearms and confront the judicial, legislative and executive mismanagement of the expectations citizens have.
Now is the time to reverse this school fee hike, least the country build the groundwork for unprecedented development of unexpected reactions. A word is enough for the wise, we are all aware that the military and paramilitary combined will not be able to defeat the Nigerian people if things get out of hand. The country does not need to push its youthful citizens outside the education community to join new arm struggle based on socioeconomic freedom from the current political mismanagement of our resources, time and expectations. The suffering, the hikes, the pains are all man-made and can be reversed. Reverse it.
Signed
Richard Inoyo,
Country Director,
Citizens’ Solution Network
Disclaimer: The opinion expressed in this article is strictly that of the author, Richard Inoyo and does not represent TheLumineNews or its agent.
