Under the auspices of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, ASCSN, organized labor has expressed concern over recent attempts to sell off the 110 Unity Colleges, also known as Federal Government Colleges, or FGCs, located throughout the nation. They have advised those who are interested in operating Secondary Schools to construct their own.
In a statement released yesterday, the ASCSN firmly stated that the FGCs were not for sale and warned anyone considering making a purchase to refrain or face unfavorable repercussions. The organization also urged the labor movement, monarchs, religious institutions, civil society groups, parents-teachers associations, student unions, intellectuals, and men and women of good conscience throughout the nation to band together in opposition to the renewed efforts to privatize the schools, which come 10 years after the initial attempt was unsuccessful.
In the statement by its Secretary-General, Joshua Apebo, ASCSN, lamented that more than 10 years after the Union stalled plans to sell the 110 FGCs, the collective wealth of millions of Nigerians to the privileged few, and the matter was rearing its ugly head again, saying “But in Nigeria, portfolio-carrying investors always connive with greedy politicians to be converting public companies and institutions into their private estates under the dubious Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model.
“We, therefore, urge the Trade Union Movement, Royal Fathers, Religious Organizations, Civil Society Groups, Parents-Teachers Associations, Student Unions, Leaders of thought, men and women of good conscience in the country to unite as they did more than ten years ago in order to prevent a situation where Federal Government Colleges will be sold to few parasitic individuals.
We recall that appalled by politics of ethnicity and bitterness which characterized the first Republic, the then Prime Minister, Sir Tafawa Balewa, in 1966 conceived and set up three Federal Government Colleges, one at Okposi (later moved to Enugu) for Eastern Region, another one in Warri for Western Region and the third one in Sokoto for Northern Region to be unifying institutions for Nigerian Children from all parts of the Country irrespective of their social status and tribes so that they would grow up as better citizens and see themselves as Nigerians having interacted closely with one another during their formative years.
“Once the schools are ceded to private entrepreneurs, they will become money-spinners and as such will be out of the reach of millions of Nigerian children whose parents and guardians would not afford exorbitant fees that would be imposed apart from the fact that thousands of teachers and other workers would be thrown into the oversaturated Labour market.
“Once education becomes a commodity only for the rich, it will be a violation of Section 18 of the 1999 Constitution as amended which stipulates, among other things, that Government shall direct its policies towards ensuring that there are equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels.
“Indeed, Section 18 (3) provides that Government shall strive to eradicate illiteracy and shall therefore provide free, compulsory, and universal primary education; free secondary education; free university education; and free adult literacy programme.
“While the struggle by the Union and other well-meaning Nigerians to retain the Unity Colleges between 2005 and 2010 raged, the then Minister of Education set up a committee headed by Senator Jonathan Silas Zwingina to tour all the FGCs and make its recommendations. Presenting its report to the Minister of Education on 12th March 2009 in Abuja, Senator Zwingina stated, among other things, that funding of the Unity Colleges appeared to be the single most important factor because some stakeholders see the maintenance of the Colleges as expensive and wasteful and had even called for their privatization.
“The Zwingina Committee then posited that the fact is that National integration is so important that we cannot place a limit on the cost of sustaining it. Those complaining about the cost of National integration should reflect on the comparative cost of National disintegration. Presently, the institutions sustaining integration in Nigeria are the NYSC, the Federal Unity Colleges, and Federal Departments and Agencies which have staff all over the country. We should therefore not take this effort for granted but must continue to sustain and encourage their growth and expansion.
During the struggle to forestall the sale of FGCs, the Union embarked on seven weeks strike, did intensive media campaigns, and engaged Lawyers, apart from a series of correspondences and meetings with Government officials. It was discovered then that those who had been penciled down to buy the Schools wanted to convert the vast expense of land and the structures therein into hotels and shopping malls to make profits because they do not have the interest of millions of students at heart.
“Communities who donated the land pledged to retrieve their land because they were donated to build schools for Nigerian children and not for the privileged few to make money. We urge Nigerians not to stand by and watch the Federal Government Colleges sold to the privileged rich and thereby mortgage the future of millions of Nigerian Children. “