Omolabake Fasogbon
A non-governmental organisation, MaroonSquare, has charged female students to actively participate in unionism actively, encouraging them to vie for key roles in the Students Union Government (SUG) and the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS).
This was sequel to a recent report by University World News, which reveals that of the 170 universities in Nigeria, only nine female students from nine universities have become student union presidents in the last 30 years.
During its annual roundtable in Lagos tagged, ‘The Nigerian Students Movement: 1982-1992’, the organisation asserted that female participation would be a path to restoring values in student unionism.
Speaking at the programme supported by the Ross Luxemburg Foundation, Policy Director of MaroonSquare, Onyeisi Chiemeke, decried the falling morals and discipline in students’ unionism, being stirred by lust for wealth and power.
She called for urgent leadership training of union leaders, emphasising female participation and engagement in unionism.
Similarly, the Editor of Youth Digest Magazine, Yomi Gidado, in a paper on ‘Voices, Representation and the Dynamics of Students Unionism: An interrogation of the activities of Students’ Union in Ondo State University in Ado-Ekiti (1986-1992)’, stressed the need for political education and re-orientation of SUG leaders to relate with the original motive of unionism on campus.
Gidado, who was once a student union leader, regretted that the present-day union was comatose and confused, adding that the leaders are no longer on campus.
He said Nigerian students have a role to play in national issues, especially at this trying moment, charging them to be an effective watchdog of the Nigerian state and its activities on the global political scene.
