Text of the monthly STATE OF THE NATION Press Briefing by United Action for Democracy (UAD), held in Lagos, Wednesday, July 1st 2009
 
INTRODUCTION
Comrade journalists, you are welcome to this press briefing, which I considered the
valedictory briefing for some of us in the leadership of the organization, whose
maximum 2 years-2 terms tenure is due by the next Convention of our organization on
July 10 - 12, 2009.
This press conference is to address the following issues:
1.                  UAD 7TH NATIONAL CONVENTION;
2.                  UAD SUPPORTS FOR ASUU STRIKE;
3.                  AT STAKE IN THE NIGER DELTA IS SELF-DETERMINATION, AND NOT
AMNESTY; and
4.                  THE STRUGGLE FOR SYSTEM CHANGE MUST CONTINUE
 
1.         UAD HOLDS 7TH NATIONAL CONVENTION
The United Action for Democracy (UAD) hereby notifies you and the public of its 7th
National Convention, which is scheduled to hold on July 10 – 12, 2009 at the
Secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Teachers’ House, Akure, Ondo
State.
The Convention will be attended by the more than 30 affiliates, delegates from the
zonal and state branches of our organization across the country
The major agenda of the 7th Convention is to examine and take far reaching positions
on the State of the Nation, State of the UAD; consider constitutional amendment
proposals and elect new officers to run the organization foe the next two years. 
 
2.         UAD SUPPORTS THE ASUU STRIKE
·               The United Action for Democracy (UAD) supports the ongoing total and
indefinite strike declared by the Academic Staff of Universities (ASUU) which
commenced on June 22nd 2009. UAD is in full agreement with the positions by the
National Executive Council (NEC) of ASUU in declaring the strike, and we commend the
union for its consistency and commitment to saving public education in Nigeria.
·               We recall that the agreement in question, which this anti-people
Yar’Adua regime is refusing to sign, was a product of more than two years of
negotiation between ASUU and the Federal Government (FG) and was concluded in
December 2008. This was despite a 2-weeks warning strike declared by ASUU on May
31st 2009 to make the inhuman regime to reason.
·               The current state of the 93 universities in the country is to say
the least appalling in terms of inadequate staffing, poor and inadequate
infrastructure, poor remuneration, lacking research grants, state and administrative
highhandedness, etc. An ivory tower whose environment is not conducive for learning
cannot be expected to compete in standards with other well funded and managed
universities in Africa and across the globe. Instead, such university system as is
the case in Nigeria will continue to engender ¼ baked graduates, brain-drains,
campus cult violence, poor manpower development, authoritarian and warped values
system and general insecurity.
·               Rather than respond to the genuine demands of ASUU, the failed
Yar’Adua regime has began a campaign to discredit and undermine these germane
demands, in the same way it did with the demand by primary and secondary school
teachers for Teachers’ Salary Structure (TSS), which most state governments are yet
to honour. The regime’s floated propaganda that ASUU wants N78b smacks of
falsehoods, makes mockery of its Nigeria’s re-branding agenda, and begs the issue.
·               It is instructive to note that political office holders (comprising
469 National Assembly members, 472 from the federal executives, 36 Governors and
their 2,664 officials, and 1,152 officials of the 36 State Assemblies) in the guise
of salaries, car maintenance allowance, wardrobe allowance, utility and
entertainment allowances, etc. cost the economy more than N1.2trillion annually.
This is aside from the sitting allowances, travel allowances, constituency
allowances and public hearings per-diem, etc. Yet the 93 universities with just
about 13,000 staffs receive poor funding.
·               UAD has consistently maintained that the decadence in the Nigerian
universities can only be overcome by a just system that appreciates education as a
fundamental necessity for all citizens and will therefore genuinely be responsive to
the decades of demand by ASUU for adequate funding, and autonomy in the
administration of the university system. It is the regime of neo-liberalism which
pursues commercialization and deregulation of the education that is responsible the
decades of poor funding and neglect of the university system and the falling
standard of education.
·               Therefore, UAD calls on the leadership of the Labour and Civil
Society Coalition (LASCO) to mobilise all the working people and civil society
organisations for a nationwide solidarity strike/mass protests with ASUU.
·               It is important that LASCO mobilizes Nigerians to join forces with
ASUU to restore academic standard and qualitative production of knowledge because of
the insensitivity and disrespect by this regime to collective agreements despite its
claim to respecting the rule of law. The issue is clear, GOVERNMENT SHOULD SIGN THE
COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT REACHED. Therefore, the National Assembly, parents, students
and all those who cherish human progress should appeal to the deceptive Yar’Adua
regime to sign the agreement.
 
3.         THE AMNESTY WILL NOT WORK! WHAT IS AT STAKE IS SELF-DETERMINATION!!
·               UAD wishes to alert Nigerians and the international community that
the purported unconditional but conditional amnesty granted by the FG on June 25,
2009 to those it labeled as ‘militants’ amounts to another public relations gimmick
that is doomed from the onset. It is a hurried concoction to placate the ‘militants’
who have been criminalized by the political criminals in power; because FG’s retinue
of agents are desperate to resume the oil theft in the region since the JTF agenda
to wipe out the militants has failed.
·               The purported amnesty further exposes the insincerity of the regime,
its directionless and insensitivity on the Niger Delta. Suffice to recall that the
regime first pronouncement was resolving the Niger Delta problem in 100 days of
office, yet 700 days since May 29, 2007, the crisis is escalating. Second was the
2008 budgetary vote of N400b to maintain security in the region. Third, was the
Gambari Reconciliatory Committee which could not takeoff because of public
resistance. Fourth, the lack of what to do with the Ledum Mitte led Niger Delta
Technical Committee. Fifth, the Ministry of Niger Delta, which is but another
cosmetic reaction to undermine the legitimate quest for political and fiscal
autonomy.
·               The UAD wishes to state that the issue of Niger Delta is a history
of unresolved question of political and socio-economic injustices since the pre-1960
independence’s negotiation, which the 1958 Willink Commission strongly recommended
should be resolved before independence. Rather, the FG from 1960 opted to exploit,
deprive, neglect and repress the people in the region. Whatever concession that has
come the way of the Niger Delta (whether as 13% derivation, NDDC, Ministry of Niger
Delta, Vice presidency, etc.) has been through hard-fought struggles that claimed
the lives of several patriots – Adaka Boro, Ken Saro Wiwa and the 8 other Ogonis,
people of Odi and of course the latest genocide committed against the people of
Gbaramatu Kingdom in Delta State.
·               While we in the UAD acknowledge that the victims of the low
intensity war the Nigerian State has imposed on the Niger Delta people in the last 5
years, has been the working population, innocent women and children; we are
convinced the cat-mouse approach packaged as ‘amnesty’ on the Niger Delta issue can
never work.
·               The issue is about reconciling the Nigerian State with the
legitimate demands of the people of Niger Delta for political and socio-economic
autonomy. It is not about granting a non-existent pardon, because the ‘militants’
never accepted any wrongs in the first place, thus the renewed grounding of oil
exploration in the face of a so-called amnesty.
·               Genuine reconciliation will come to Niger Delta if the political
rights of the people of Niger Delta are first and foremost respected to elect
leaders of their choice not the fraudulent imposition of the Iboris, Odilis,
Jonathan et all. Mass employment cannot come the way of the Niger Delta and
Nigerians when refineries are not made to work and Nigeria lacks the technical
capacity for oil exploration. For us in UAD, the refineries must work, new ones
built and the necessary infrastructure for industrial development takeoff are
effected, while.
·               We therefore make the following demands:
-          Reject Air Vice-Marshall Ararile Amnesty Committee as a deceit and
another avenue for corrupt allocation and looting of public funds.
-          Immediate and unconditional withdraw of the genocidal troops called JTF
(Joint Task Force) from all the states in the South-South.
-          FG must put a STOP to the oil theft being perpetrated by its fronts and
collaborators (local and international).
-          FG must ensure that oil companies respect the international standards on
oil exploration viz. gas flaring, environmental degradation, and prosecute
multinational oil companies which continue to despoil the Niger Delta environment,
thereby polluting the air, water and land; and flouting international standards.
-          Develop the resources environment and create access for human capital
development.
-          Respect the right of the people in the region as articulated by their
various documents such as the Ogoni Bill of Rights, the Ijaw’s Kaiama Declaration in
line with the principles defined by the African Charter on self-determination, which
Nigeria is a signatory.
 
4.      THE NATION-WIDE RALLIES/PROTESTS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR SYSTEM CHANGE MUST
CONTINUE
·               The leadership of the UAD has reviewed the LASCO’s led nationwide
rallies/protests, which held in Lagos May 13th, Asaba May 15th, Kano June 16th and
Maiduguri June 23rd against the Yar’Adua regime planned deregulation of the oil
industry; the demand of Nigerian workers for a new National Minimum Wage of N52,200;
and the full implementation of the Justice Uwais recommendations on electoral
reforms.
·               The UAD commends the leadership of LASCO and Nigerians for the
massive turnout which further demonstrates while the necessity to organize and
mobilize Nigerians for a political alternative. Just immediately after the
successful rally/mass protests of May 13th in Lagos, the Yar’Adua regime beat a
retreat on its wicked policy of deregulation, and the direct result was the
disappearance of queues at filling stations across the country and availability of
fuel at the pump price of N65 for petrol.
·               We call on LASCO to proceeds with the rallies/mass protests in other
venues comprising Enugu, Makurdi, Ibadan and Abuja as a warning signal to the FG
that should it fails to accede to these germane demands, Nigerians will be left with
no option than to embark on a total strike and civil disobedience.
 
 
Comrade ABIODUN AREMU                                TAIWO OTITOLAYE
Convener                                                          General Secretary