NIGERIAN STUDENTS’ MOVEMENT IN PERSPECTIVE

NIGERIAN STUDENTS’ MOVEMENT IN PERSPECTIVE

Without mincing words, the state of National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) is nothing to write home about. Worse still, virtually all hitherto radical students’ unions have either being castrated by authorities (OAU, UNILAG, LASU, etc.) or have been transformed to mere NGO-like, semi-entrepreneurial, pro-establishment unions, serving as conduit pipes for implementation of anti-student policies as can be seen in several institutions today. The Nigerian students’ movement has lost all the radical fibers it was formerly recognized for. While in 2006, the media was replete with condemnation and open public disgust about the treacherous cum fraudulent activities of the Kenneth Orkumah-led NANS national leadership with its being one of the first social groups to publicly declare support for the ruinous third term agenda (when he and his hangers-on declared for Obasanjo’s perpetuation in office after collecting a cash donation of N10 million from Obasanjo at a fraudulent NANS conference and senate meeting), subsequent NANS leaderships afterwards have shown that they can the game of sell out than the Orkumah-led NANS. The treacherous position of the immediate NANS leadership on the last national four-month strike of lecturers over government’s insincerity about education funding, is a clear example of how deeply rotten the organization has become. Or how else can one describe a situation where a students’ organization will support government that kept its members at home for months.

If not for the heroic efforts of Education Rights Campaign (ERC) and other progressive students’ groups which raised students’ opposition to government’s shameful posture, students’ acquiescence to government’s irresponsibility would have been assumed. This shows the total disconnect between NANS leadership and students – its mass base. Not only this, it has become the culture of NANS leadership, most of whom emerge from very undemocratic elections to feather their pecuniary nests by giving awards to anti-student moneybag politicians and government officials who have at one time or the other, individually or severally supported policies and agenda that put money out of the pockets of the poor people of Nigeria to those of the already super-rich. In short, NANS has become another pawn in the chessboard of the ruling class while standing against everything that it originally stood for. For close to a decade, there has been official factionalization of NANS with each faction claiming a territory of control. This write-up hopes to generate a debate on moving students’ movement forward.

Historical and ideological Collapse

To be fair with these “leaderships”, their predecessors had laid a solid foundation for this “historic” sell out. One could vividly recall the reactionary, pro-state positions of the Segun Olaleye, Tony Nwoye, Daniel Onjeh, et al, who all sold Nigerian students out to the corrupt and backward set of ruling class in place today, just to satisfy their pecuniary interests while Nigerian students are being attacked through the commercialization and privatization of education policies, among other anti-poor policies of the Obasanjo government and it clones in states. In fact, one can trace the history of ideological death of NANS to the 1994 convention in which power was taken away from the undemocratic, though progressive, ex-Stalinists (the former followers of Soviet Union’s policies as represented by Joseph Stalin and his successors, who perverted the genuine ideas of Marxism, despite nationalizing state economy) by the reactionary, pro-state elements, who relied on the general dissatisfaction of the general student activists with the undemocratic means in which the organization was being run (by the ex-Stalinists) to entrench themselves in the leadership, adequately supported with funds and logistics by various military government agencies.

Prior to 1994 convention, the ex-Stalinist, despite claiming to be progressives, ran the organization as their private organization without input of students and activists at senate meetings. Delegates to senate meetings and conventions were randomly and clandestinely chosen amongst their comrades in different campuses. While some progressive decisions and activities were undertaken by some of the leadership, lack of democratic control, sincere review of tactics, policies and slogans most time led to misadventures that caused students many setbacks thus engendering anti-union mood amongst students at periods of defeat. This gave room for pro-establishment elements who would have normally been silenced in a genuinely democratic NANS to use the excuse of lack of democracy to popularize themselves and take over NANS in 1994. Many of these agents later infiltrated ex-Stalinist organizations that later transmuted to human right groups after collapse of the Soviet Union. Rather than concede to democracy, the ex-Stalinist accused Marxist students, who were campaigning for a left-wing democratic NANS, of supporting the state agents. The excuse of the ex-Stalinists was that they needed to protect the organization as a revolutionary organization forgetting that students’ movement is only a mass organization that needs democracy under a left-wing influence in order to genuinely flourish. The ex-Stalinists later factionalized NANS.

Notwithstanding the ideological shortcomings of ex-Stalinist leadership of NANS, the organization was known for its radicalism. Aside organizing national actions against government’s attack on education, it also played active roles in the struggles of workers. This is a product of the viability of ideological trends on campuses, which produced not just student activists but working class activists who understood the world relations and its impact on Nigeria. In short, an average student activist is anti-imperialism. This rubbed off on ordinary students who were treated to various agitations of student activists in congresses, rallies, symposia, etc. During these radical days of NANS, the Nigerian students’ movement was not only known for defending the interests of its members but also playing active roles in the struggles of workers and other oppressed strata. One can easily recall the anti-SAP struggles and the anti-military struggles. Then, you have no business in being students’ union activist without having any ideological understanding of the society.

Role of Collapse of the Soviet Union

Ironically, this was a period when the attacks on education are less intense than now. Today, students are being ferociously attacked by the governments and former gains of past struggles are being withdrawn, we are now witnessing students being bought over by fake entrepreneurship gospel in a country where there is no infrastructure for even the survival of big industries not to mention the small scale business that can easily be killed by power failure for just a week; in a country where over 90 percent are living below $2 a day, thus reducing purchasing power. This change in consciousness is a by product of the collapse of the Soviet Union (and nationalized Eastern European economies) which many ex-Stalinists could not explain at the time as being a product of the undemocratic and bureaucratic nature of the leadership of the Soviet Union (and not the inadequacy of the nationalized economy which indeed moved the society far better than capitalism). As a result of this confusion, many leftist student activists and their leaders became ideologically disillusioned and dissolved into human “right-ism” while other less clear-headed layer amongst them became agents of various authorities and governments at all levels. It is however important to point out that this development affected not only Stalinist organizations but also, some Marxist comrades, who as a result of the capitalist euphoria of post-Cold War era, lost faith in the ability of socio-economic reorganization of society. However, this development was systemic in the Stalinist movement as a result of the failure of Stalinism itself. Thus, successive generations of student activists could not see any true example of a genuine ex-NANS activist but those who have turned their radical credentials to meal tickets, even at the detriment of the cause for which they hitherto defended.

Coupled with this is the collapse of the genuine leadership of labour movement which would have mobilized the power of Nigerians masses – including students, to fights successful neo-colonial capitalist governments in Nigeria. The lack of the ideological base of the human rights organizations on the campuses and their failure to give a scientific, economic cum political analyses of the Nigerian state led to their isolation from other mass organizations including workers’ movement and subsequent infiltration of their organizations by pro-state elements. While the former led to lack of a holistic manner of struggling by genuine students’ leaders which make them to adopt sectarian, anti-working class and anarchistic methods of struggling; the latter led to degeneration of these organizations in many campuses leading to sell out among students’ activists who rise to union offices through the credentials of these organizations but sell students out to the management and the state, thus signaling the collapse of many hitherto radical students’ unions.

Pernicious Role of the State and School Authorities

Added to this is the conscious role of the school authorities and the state in destroying the legacy of genuinely progressive students’ unionism either by buying over students’ leaders or using naked force like the cultists, police and victimization (as in OAU, UI, Unilorin, Unilag) to deal with genuine student activists. A quasi-legal means was even used by the Babangida regime through the Abisoye Panel of 1989 which recommended that students’ unionism should be voluntary, thus castrating many students’ unions and NANS financially, and using this to proscribe many students’ unions and NANS. Consequently, the reactionary leaderships of unions and NANS used this excuse of financial emasculation to sell out unions and NANS by giving awards to anti-poor politicians and moneybags, and serving as backing dogs for anti-poor governments in exchange for pecuniary benefits. This also found its resonance in the structures of NANS. It is now common for governments, especially state governments, to appoint ex-students’ union leaders as assistants/advisers on students’ matters with the sole aim of taming students’ movement and using it for their political ends, by ensuring emergence of pro-state students’ leaders, buying over union leaders or openly attacking the uncooperative unions and their leaderships.

The Tasks Ahead

From the above analysis, it can be seen how far the students’ movement has systematically collapsed ideologically, structurally and intellectually. Yet, Nigerian students cannot resists various anti-poor policies, especially incessant and criminal hike in fees, without building a pan-Nigerian students’ movement that will rely on the mass involvement of students at all levels, as a platform for change. Therefore, Nigerian students’ movement must start afresh and build a new organization that will base itself on the idea of transformation of the society from this man-eat-man, decadent neo-liberal capitalist system that prioritize profits for the rich few against the welfare of the working people including the students; to an egalitarian system where the wealth of the country will be collectively used for people’s need as against that of imperialism and its hangers-on in the country’s polity. The first action in this direction is the refocusing of the political/ideological groups on campuses by organizing ideological cells; organizing mass campaign around local and national issues, especially as it concerns attacks on public education; refocusing students’ understanding of issues through publication of educative materials (pamphlets, bulletins, campus papers and magazines); and joining working class and community organizations in struggle from local to the national levels. 

The genuine activists remaining on campuses must stand up and build a new pan-Nigerian students’ movement that will not only defend the rights of Nigerian youth to free, well funded and quality education with democratic input of the workers’ and students’ unions in the running of the education sector; but also link its struggle with that of other sections of the oppressed layers –workers, artisans, professionals, etc and defend people’s rights to better socio-economic system that will defend people’s welfare. This is the task that the students’ members of Democratic Socialist Movement and the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) – a student mass organization campaigning for free and quality education and rebuilding of Nigerian students’ movement have set for themselves. We enjoin all change seeking students and youth who believe in this task, to join the DSM and ERC. Without carrying out these tasks, we cannot answer the question of whether a new students’ movement should be built or NANS should be rescued and restructured because it is programmes outlined above that can mobilise the mass of student who will serve as bulwark for the task ahead.

This is the time when Nigerian students ought to be asking why Nigeria will be wallowing in unimaginable wealth (over $300 billion since 1999) and yet the capitalist government could not provide free, qualitative education to its citizens (which has led to just ten percent of Nigerian youth being in schools). This contradiction of pervasive impoverishment in the presence of abundant wealth requires a solid, consistent and radical students’ organization that will be able to expose and raise the banner of progressive unionism. We must also know that the demands of students are also political because the present-age government is one whose ideological basis is rooted in scrupulous globalized capitalist neo-liberalism; and the invisible hands of the market. This government, while it continues to regenerate itself in brazen corruption, will continue to stand for imperialism; stand against public education, social welfare, etc. Therefore, the new Nigerian students’ movement, if finally formed should link up with other pro-people and working class organizations to build a radical working people’s party that will champion the demand for massive funding of social services – free education, free health, adequate wages and pension, clean water, cheap and public transportation, mass and cheap housing, job for all, etc. If the nation’s economy is nationalized it will liberate enough fund that is currently being held by just 1% of the population who are controlling 80% of the nation’s wealth, needed to massively develop the economy.