Labour rejects privatisation of Queen’s College

The Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) has rejected the call that the Queen’s College, Lagos should be privatised, declaring that the call is a self-serving agenda by the elites who had always wanted to sell all the Unity colleges in the country to themselves.

The President of Queen’s College Old Students Association, Mrs F. Ajose, had advised that the Queen’s College should be privatised, in the wake of outbreak of diarrhea in the school.

In a statement issued and made available to Tribune Online on Monday, the ASCSN Secretary-General, Comrade Alade Bashir Lawal, regretted that the outbreak of diarrhea at Queen’s College, had now provided impetus for renewed call for the privatisation of Unity Schools.

He said: “In a normal society, what should concern genuine patriots including old students is to see how the health issues in Queen’s College should be brought under control. But in Nigeria, since the eyes of the elite have always been on how to sell the 104 Federal Unity Colleges to themselves in the name of privatisation, the diarrhea outbreak in Queen’s College had provided another opportunity for their self-serving agenda.”

Rather than waiting to buy the Unity School, if they have such money, Comrade Lawal advised those who wished to own secondary schools, including the old students of the Unity Colleges, to set up their own instead of “using every opportunity to start campaigns that Unity Colleges should be turned into their private estates.”

He pointed out that the 104 Federal Unity Colleges had continued to excel at examinations conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examinations Council (NECO); adding, therefore, that there should be no need for such campaigns since they are doing well.

‘‘The Unity Colleges were set up in the 1960s by the then Tafawa Balewa Government to act as unifying institutions for children and staff from various parts of the country apart from being models for secondary education in the country.

According to the ASCSN scribe, “since inception in 1966, the Federal Unity Colleges, which had increased from three when it first started to 104 as at today, have continued to fulfil those objectives.

“It is, therefore, surprising that instead of nurturing the ideals of the founding fathers of the Federal Unity Colleges, some unpatriotic persons are bent on converting the schools and the vast expense of land thereof into their private property.”

The ASCSN recalled that few years ago, it embarked on about seven (7 weeks) strike to prevent the regime of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo from auctioning the schools to his cronies.

“What should preoccupy patriotic Nigerians now is how to put pressure on the government to improve the funding situations in the Unity Colleges. With better funding, the health issue that resulted in the diarrhea outbreak may not have happened. Cutting of head had never and will never be a solution to headache no matter how persistent and severe it is,” the Union emphasised.

It, therefore, called on the Trade Union movement, well-meaning Nigerians and the civil societies groups to prevent the greedy elite from selling the Unity schools, the nation’s patrimony, to the privilege few.