Fawehinmi lecture: OAU students reject Omoworare as speaker
Sodiq Oyeleke
Students of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife under the aegis of Socialist and Left Organisations have faulted Senator Babajide Omoworare and other All Progressives Congress lawmakers for shutting a bill to pay unemployed youth N5,000 monthly.
The position of the students was made known in a press statement to reject Omoworare as one of the speakers in a public lecture organised to honour Late Gani Fawehinmi.
The statement made available to our correspondent on Sunday was jointly signed by Coordinator, Socialist Youth League, Abiodun Idris; General Secretary, Democratic Socialist Movement, Wole Olubanji; and Chairman, Pacesetters Movement, Sanyaolu Juwon.
According to the students, Omoworare's rejection is necessitated for shutting bill seeking to pay unemployed youth N5,000 monthly and negligence to their outcry during fee increment.
In the statement, the students explained that Omoworare, who is representing Ife-Ijesa Senatorial District in the National Assembly, has not exhibited any pro-people character worthy of earning him the
pedigree to speak at such a public lecture.
The statement read, "Please recall that Senator Omoworare joined his other APC colleagues on the floor of the Senate to shut down a bill moved by Senator Philip Aduda that the Federal Government, as part of its campaign promises to Nigerians, should start payment of N5, 000 to unemployed youths in Nigeria. The APC senators embarrassingly shut down a motion of national importance as that, without engaging in any debate on it.
"We consider the conspiracy of these APC Senators as anti-youths and narrow-minded. We fully support proposal for payment of allowance for Nigerian youths that are unemployed, because the problem of unemployment is largely caused by the ineptitude of successive governments and politicians in Nigeria, who invest in nothing other than corruption and oil. However, we believe that the Buhari government should not use the payment of N5, 000 stipends as an excuse not to fund education with 26% budgetary allocation of the 2016 budget."
They also lamented that Omoworare, who is the senator representing Ife-Ijesa senatorial district in
the national assembly, paid deaf hears to the agitation of both students and staff of OAU.
The statement added, "Our University is by chance, located in the same Senatorial district that Senator
Omoworare is representing in the National
Assembly. But there has not been any time that
Omoworare has openly argued or advanced the
cause of the students, lecturers and staff of the
University in the Nigerian Senate or the National
Assembly at large.
"One would have expected that as a Senator in the opposition, in the year 2014, he would have called the attention of the Senate to the
agitation of Great Ife Students against the
outrageous increment in our fees. We contend that inviting politicians like Omoworare to an anniversary in honour of Chief Gani Fawehinmi is an unpardonable dishonour to the legacies of the deceased."
http://dailytimes.com.ng/oau-students-reject-senator-speaker-fawehinmi-lecture/
Written by NEWSTRAWL ONLINE UPDATE
Sodiq Oyeleke is a Media, Human Resources, Project Management and Public Relations Practitioner
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