DEATH CENTRES # STUDENTSLIVESMATTER (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-consciou s 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.