By Afolabi Oyekunle.
Comrade Fajobi reading the address.
President Bola Tinubu.
The Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) has again kicked against Federal government plans to cede the 120 federal government colleges to private individuals under the public private partnership model as currently being spearheaded by Old Boys Associations, with Kings College, Lagos as a pilot project.
The Association said the move is contrary to the motive behind the establishment of the Colleges to give opportunity to all students to access the schools irrespective of parental background, and affordable education for all students.
The text was read by National Vice President, Comrade Adebayo Fajobi, at a press conference in Kings College, Lagos.
He observed that concession of the schools will make them exclusive to the children of the affluence in the society, making if difficult for the children of the less privileged and low income earners.
He also warned that it could cost loss of jobs to thousands of workers.
At the press conference attended by members of the Association and some staff of Kings College various placards were displayed in which they rejected what they perceived as the reasons behind the plans to take over Kings College because of the landed property which eventually could be turned to ventures beneficial to members of the Associations.
Meanwhile, the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria,(ASCSN) has written a letter to President Bola Tinubu on their worries and the need for the government to take a holistic approach to the issue.
It reads thus:
"As a preeminent politician who has, over the decades, continued to hold aloft the banner of progressive governance, it may well be that fifth-columnist in your administration are pursing this agenda of appropriating public schools for private purposes to dent your impeccable credentials and derail your Renewed Hope Agenda for Nigerian youths.
3. It must be admitted, Your Excellency, that there is certainly nothing wrong if Old Boys Associations of Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary institutions desire to give back to their alma maters by donating resources, renovating infrastructure, or providing contemporary technologies to such schools to enhance learning but that can be done without necessarily insisting on taking over such educational institutions.
Indeed, philanthropy itself ought not to be practised in such a manner that it begins to vitiate from its core virtue of selflessness and starts to veer into the realm of quid pro quo to become transactional and disingenuous.
4. Let it now be stated, Sir, that in the United States, for instance, there are about 20,000 to 24,800 Government funded Secondary Schools; in the United Kingdom about 4,180 to 4,200 Government funded Secondary Schools; while in Germany, there are about 8,900 state-run Secondary Schools. It is instructive to note that even though these countries operate market-forces driven economies, yet, they provide free education for their children and youths so that they can be properly equipped to cope in contemporary knowledge-based societies.
5. Beyond all that, it is also necessary to recall that when the sale of Unity Schools became a matter of intense national discourse between 2005 to 2009, the Federal Ministry of Education set up a Committee led by Senator (Prof) Jonathan Zwingina to tour the 104 Federal Unity Colleges existing then. While presenting his report to the Honourable Minister of Education on 12th March 2009 in Abuja, Senator Zwingina stated, among other things, that;
“Funding appears to be the single most important factor in the unity colleges. Some stakeholders see the maintenance of the colleges as expensive and wasteful and have even called for their privatisation. The fact is that national integration is so important that we cannot place a limit to 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 who 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.”
6. You are also invited to note the following:
(a) EMERGENCE OF UNITY SCHOOLS: A HISTORICAL INSIGHT
You may also wish to know Mr. President that the unity schools themselves were conceived by the first Prime Minister of the country, late Sir Tafawa Balewa, who, appalled by politics of ethnicity which characterised the first Republic, resolved to set up the schools to be unifying institutions for Nigerian children from all parts of the country irrespective of their social status and tribes so that they will grow up as better citizens and see themselves as Nigerians having interacted closely with one another during their formative years. Thus, the first three unity colleges were established in 1966 at Okposi (later moved to Enugu) for Eastern Region, at Warri for Western Region and at Sokoto for Northern Region. That the schools have continued to wax stronger today and had grown in leaps and bounds up to 120, sixty (60) years after they were established, is eloquent testimony of Sir Balewa’s ingenuity and vision. Thus, the least the present generation of political elites can do is to sustain the institutions as legacy for national integration among Nigerian youths instead of selling them to private entrepreneurs so that they become accessible only to the children of the privileged rich. Besides, apart from exorbitant fees that would be imposed on students, millions of Education Officers teaching in the Colleges and other employees would be thrown into the oversaturated labour market, the negative social consequences of which we cannot now precisely predict.
(b) GENESIS OF PLOTS TO SELL UNITY COLLEGES
Your Excellency, it is necessary to also recall that as far back as 1978 while on a visit to Federal Government College Odogbolu, Ogun State, General Olusegun Obasanjo, the then military Head of State started to toy with the idea
of Federal Government distancing itself from running the Unity Schools because according to him they were too expensive to manage. Against this background, it was not entirely surprising, therefore, that when he was elected President in 1999, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in 2005 renewed his unfinished project of ceding Federal Government Colleges to private entrepreneurs within the framework of PPP. Thus, on 1st September 2006 after the groundwork and formula for the private appropriation of the schools have been finalized, his then Minister of Education, Obiageli Ezekwesili, in a 12-page epistle to the President, among other things, stated: “Mr. President, we propose the privatisation of these schools. The Ministry will work with the Bureau of Public Enterprises to allow competent private sector-driven education organisations to manage these schools.”
(c) CAMPAIGN OF CALUMNY AGAINST UNITY SCHOOLS
One of the falsehoods concocted and propagated against the Federal Government Colleges by General Obasanjo’s plethora of sycophants led by the then Education Minister, Obiageli Ezekwesili in order to prepare grounds for their sale, was that only 13% of students from unity schools pass their West Africa School Certificate Examinations without providing concrete facts to back up their claims. Debunking this false narrative, an investigative magazine, The News, in its edition of 30th October 2006 wondered: if that allegation was correct, how come that Ministers, Governors, top politicians, business men and women jostle to have their children and wards admitted into the colleges. Indeed, data from the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examinations Council (NECO) indicate that overall good performance of students of unity colleges in all the subjects offered by the two Examination body over the years is more than 90%. These facts can be verified from WAEC and NECO.
(d) BATTLE TO RESCUE UNITY SCHOOLS FROM BEING PRIVATISED Well, as it turned out, this quest to cede the unity schools, the country’s collective patrimony, and the vast expanse of land thereof to the privileged few, was fiercely resisted by this Union in alliance with millions of other Nigerians including sister Trade Unions, students unions, parents/teachers associations, civil society groups, leaders of thought, conscientious individuals, religious leaders, traditional rulers, etc. Indeed, the communities in different parts of the country that donated the vast expanse of land on which the schools were built vowed to revoke the approval given to the Government to build the unity colleges because they will not allow their land meant for schools for the education of millions of Nigerian children to be converted into hotels, shopping malls, etc., by private enterprises whose sole purpose is to accumulate profits. We must also recall that during the five-year (2005-2010) battle to rescue the Federal Unity Colleges from prospective buyers, the Association embarked on series of dialogues with the Government and ultimately strikes including the one that lasted for seven (7) weeks. The Union’s meagre resources were equally deployed to engage the Government on litigations in the courts at very great cost. All this was intended to preserve the schools for Nigerian children and also prevent millions of employees working in the unity college system from losing their jobs.
Mr. President, Sir, it is on record that peace eventually returned to the unity school system in July 2010 when President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan ordered the resumption of the Junior Secondary School (JSS) components of the colleges that have been disarticulated by previous Federal Administrations as a gradual process to ultimately phase out the Unity Schools completely. It is unfortunate that sixteen (16) years after Unity School system returned to normalcy, effort have been renewed to destabilize them. Millions of Nigerian children ought not to be subjected to this periodic trauma over attempts to deny
them quality secondary education by adults bent on turning the unity colleges into their private estates.
CONCLUSION
7. From the foregoing, it should become crystal clear that millions of Nigerians yearn for Federal Government Colleges to continue to exist not only as models and affordable secondary education for Nigerian youths irrespective of their tribes, economic, and social status of their parents but also as institutions for nurturing national unity and integration. Thus, as a democrat with sterling progressive credentials, we have no doubt whatsoever that Your Excellency will not succumb to pressures by Old Boys Associations and other private entrepreneurs angling to take over the Federal Government Colleges instead of setting up their own secondary schools to contribute to the educational needs of millions of Nigerian youths but will stand firm with Nigerian people on this matter so that you can leave your indelible footprints on the sands of time.
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