Statement of the SPEC on the Suspension of 200-600l Students of BSU

THE SUSPENSION OF MEDICAL STUDENTS BY THE MANAGEMENT OF BSU OVER A PEACEFUL PROTEST IS A REPRESSION OF FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHT

• Reverse the suspension of medical students of the BSU now!
• Meet all the demands of the students
• The freedom and right to protest is an inalienable right.

Our attention at the Save Public Education Campaign (SPEC) has been drawn towards the arbitrary suspension of the 200 – 600 level medical students of the Benue State University (BSU) over a peaceful demonstration. Instead of immediately meeting the demands of the students, the management of the university, to the best of their intellectual knowledge, decided to unilaterally suspend all the students for a month with the condition that they have to resume with an affidavit and their parent/guardian. We totally condemn this barbaric act as it contravenes the rights of students to associate and protest peacefully for their collective welfare condition. We therefore call on the management of BSU to immediately disembark on this futile journey, rescind the suspension notice and immediately meet the demands of the students.

We can gather that the Medical Students of the Benue State University embarked on a peaceful protest on the 25th of October, 2023, to the government house over the unjust withdrawal of students, incessant shortage of water, congested facilities and general poor welfare conditions. Instead of the university management to immediately commence the process of meeting the demands of the students, this group of intellectual dons decided that the suspension of these patriotic students was the panacea to the question of poor living and welfare conditions on the campus.

To us in SPEC, we believe that the suspension is out of place and never the solution to the unsatisfactory state of the campus. Further, it is a mockery of our collective intelligence that the freedom of expression and peaceful protest – a constitutional right of every citizen – is being trampled upon by the academicians who are supposed to uphold it. We believe that an institution like BSU should encourage students to express their concerns peacefully – as the students have done – to promote social consciousness, transparency and self-expression.

Furthermore, we believe that the university officials who are products of political appointments are merely trying to protect the incompetence of their bosses in power who selected them for the position against the collective interest and benefit of the masses which they were supposed to protect. We believe the management should have initiated a dialogue, acknowledging the tenacity of the students, and finding a way to meet all of the demands of the students.

Given all of this background, we of SPEC demand the immediate withdrawal of such circular and the unconditional recall of the students back into the campus. We also demand a public apology from the management of BSU for trying to mask the civil and legal rights of the students. Similarly, we call on the BSU management to immediately look into the demands of the students and ensure that clean water is returned, facilities are decongested and the mode of withdrawing students is reviewed. These would show the commitment of the management to defending the interest of the masses of the working people and not that of the ruling oppressors.

We call for genuine autonomy for universities and internal democracies of students and workers, no to tyranny and totalitarianism by management and government.  The staff unions must extend solidarity with students and we call for unity of students and staff unions to push the struggle to a logical conclusion.  This struggle must be linked to proper funding of education and collective monitoring of available resources to campuses to end the authoritarianism of the management.

While we extend our solidarity to the medical students, we hold that the war is not yet over and this little challenge should be seen as a basis of planning and organizing even a more encompassing protest that will further expose the atrocities of the university management. Freedom can only come by struggle!

Damilola Owot

Organizing Secretary,

Save Education Campaign (SPEC)