By I think it is high time I finally show my discontentment over the long-term fraud of the Oyo State Government and the Oyo State Ministry of Health over School of Hygiene Eleyele, Ibadan.
In 2012 and 2014 respectively, I wrote against the deplorable state of the School of Hygiene and the undemocratic attack of the Oyo State Government, Oyo State Ministry of Health and the Management of the Oyo State School of Hygiene on the students of the institution. This was based on the undemocratic decision of the School Management to deny the students body in the school the right to hold a public symposium to discuss the plight of the students which ranged from lack of conducive living and learning environment, the nook and cranny of the campus and halls of residence are in a disgraceful and deplorable state, toilets are archaic and an eyesore, drainages are blocked and no reliable sources of water supply and when water is occasionally supplied, it is often not hygienic and safe for consumption. This then explain why students are always exposed to water borne diseases which affect their academic output.
Also I explained how the Oyo State government and the school management forced students from poor working class background to pay outrageous and exorbitant fees. To be clear, the exorbitant fees is a graphic reflection of the anti-poor disposition of the Ajimobi government – a government which has attacked the human rights of the working people many times and which cannot afford to pay just common eighteen thousand Naira (#18,000) minimum wage. And despite all these exorbitant charges by the Oyo State government, graduates of the department of environmental health, School of Hygiene Eleyele Ibadan who spent four years on campus are not mobilized for NYSC. This state of affairs has been a huge challenge on the side of the graduates who spent years without anything to show for it. I happen to be one of the graduates.
Most painful is that graduates from the department of Environmental Health are being denied employment in every sector because they were not mobilized for NYSC. After I released the articles in 2012 and 2014, they were published by major news papers. However, how instead of the state government to find a lasting solution to the problem on this campus, the state government sent for the arrest and detention of the person who wrote the article. The state government and some elements paid the then union president to refute the article published and lied that the government had done everything to improve the standard of school of hygiene.
Afterward, the so-called exclusion letter of NYSC was given to the students of the department of Environmental Health. This is just a gimmick that makes no difference or makes no meaning. Thus I want to make clear that only this year, because of the issue of NYSC, I have been denied of two empowerment loans and four different job opportunities, and this is also applicable to other graduates of the department of Environmental Health in School of Hygiene.
The ex-students of the School Hygiene must not resign to fate; we must fight for our rights in order to secure our future. The current students of the school of hygiene are incoming victims of this career-killing policy. So, I call on them to join the ex-students of the school in a campaign to demand the participation in the NYSC. The school management and Oyo state Ministry of Health are only interested in collecting outrageous fees from students without bothering about the future and careers of the students. It would require this campaign to force them to act and justify collection of huge fees collected and certificates awarded to us.
Daniel Oluwafiayokemi Akande, member of the Education Rights Campaign (ERC), writes from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. He can be reached through 08034730340 and [email protected]
