(This piece is dedicated to Hon. Com. MARIA ATERE of the
Department of Plant physiology and Crop production of
FUNAAB. Born in ONDO STATE, She died yesterday at the
university health centre due to the negligence and lassitude
of health workers.)
MAY 6, 2015, it was Mayowa Alaran (200 level first-class
student of the department of Human kinetics, University of
Ibadan) who died because nurses at the medical centre of
the university did not treat him on the basis that he could
not provide his matric. No or clinic card. He was too sick to
talk or write.
AUGUST 30, 2015, it was KEL (a female 200 level student of
the department of theatre arts of UNIPORT) who was left
unattended to for over 6 hours by health workers and she
died.
SEPTEMBER 8, 2015, OLUCHI ANEKWE (a female 300 level
first class student of the department of accounting of
UNILAG) who was electrocuted and medical personnel let
her die while asking for I.D card.
SEPTEMBER 29, 2015, AKINTARO RAPHAEL (an ND student
at The Polytechnic of Ibadan) who was neglected to die by
the nurses of the medical centre.
AND NOW HON. MARIA….WHO KNOWS WHO’S NEXT? IT
MIGHT JUST BE ANYBODY, ANY NIGERIAN STUDENT, ANY
LEADER OF TOMORROW!
All of these future leaders died in the space of about four
months. Do students’ lives matter at all? What of
KOLAWOLE MORENIKEJI OF LAUTECH who slumped at a
football match and medical personnel were unable to save
him from death? What of OLADIMEJI OLU, an ND1 computer
engineering student and a parliamentarian in LASPOTECH
SUG, who died after he was not attended to for hours?
FELLOW NIGERIAN STUDENTS, SHOULDN’T WE PUT A
STOP TO THIS? These are just the numbers that made the
news. What of the deaths swept under the carpet?
This is the situation in Nigerian universities today as Health
Centre has turned to death centre. My experience in OAU
where I school, involves cases where malaria drugs are
prescribed for stomach ulcer, diarrhea drugs prescribed for
asthma..etc. I’ve seen cases of unavailability of drugs in
the pharmacy during emergency, and if the patient is broke
to afford buying the drugs from common medicine stores
(where it’s available), he/she is stuck. I’ve seen cases of
ONE doctor attending to patients, with around 35 students
with critical issues on the queue.
Neglect by nurses, abandonment by medical personnel,
taking hours to attend to emergency cases, requesting for
I.D card or clinic card before attending to emergency cases-
all of these raise the question of competence of medical
workers. In a country where health workers go on strike, 95
percent of health workers are no longer attached to their job
either because they are overworked or underpaid or not paid
for several months. This alienation is what gave birth to the
“i-don’t-care” attitude that health workers give to their job,
especially in Nigerian universities.
There were cases where the only ambulance available was
not working, cases where there were no ambulance and the
university health centre is not working round the clock-
therefore raising the need for referral, cases where there
were no hospital beds for students in grave conditions,
cases where there was no power supply at the health
centre, and cases where there was no fuel either for their
generator or their ambulance. For an oil-producing country
like Nigeria, the blame therefore goes to the universities
management, the federal and state governments and as
such the responsibility to make a change lies on them too.
No excuse can justify the death of a Nigerian student given
the exorbitant amount of school fees being paid in tertiary
institutions. What of the diarrhea scourge that sent 600
students of a federal girls’ college in the south-west to the
hospital beds? Can anything justify that? NO.
The lassitude being shown by the profit-conscious VCs,
rectors and provosts of tertiary institutions which make
them ration medical personnel, and medical facilities should
not be condoned by any conscious higher institution.
Nigerian students should stand up (ignoring the cowardly
student union leaders of these days) independently of any
bureaucracy and take up protests and demonstrations to
compel their management to ensure adequate health care
services in their institutions.
The governments of these states and at the federal level has
to be obligated to ensure the provision of health personnel
and health services to the future leaders or our country will
have no future. This is not something they will give out in
their fortitude. Nigerian students must stand up to make
these bold demands among others which include reversal of
fee hikes and even the abolition of fee. We must demand
that the government should make provision for the average
and poor Nigerian youths to be educated alike. We must see
the reason to solidarize with health workers whose salaries
have not being paid in demanding that they should be paid
so that they can feel more committed to their work. We
must protest in our various institutions, we must protest at
our government houses, on major roads, at major squares-
In Lagos-at Abuja. THESE DEATHS MUST STOP.
Commercialization of education must stop. Students’
leaders should stop selling out students and take up the
responsibility they have been elected for. HON. MARIA’S
DEATH MUST BE THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF
PREVENTABLE DEATHS! IF WE FIGHT WE MAY WIN, IF WE
DON’T, WE’VE LOST ALREADY. The ruling class is waging
an economic class war on the poor and these students are
war casualties, WE MUST FIGHT TO DEFEND OURSELVES
FROM THESE ATTACKS ON OUR LIVES. PRESIDENT
BUHARI should address this matter as his top priority before
we have another book-haramic body count. Solidarities to
FUNAAB as you protest MARIA’s death today.
NIGERIAN STUDENTS, RISE TO DEFEND YOURSELVES…..
NIGERIAN STUDENTS, RISE TO MAKE CLEAR DEMANDS
ALUTA CONTINUA, VICTORIA ASCERTA.
Omole Ibukun is a 400L student of the Department of Civil-
Engineering at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. He is a
publicity member of the Alliance of Nigerian Students
Against Neo-liberal Attacks (ANSA), the secretary of the
OAU branch of the Education Rights Campaign (ERC), and a
parliamentarian in the OAU Students’ union.



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