Organised Labour under the auspices of Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) has raised the alarm over fresh moves to sell off the country’s 110 unity schools, otherwise known as Federal Government Colleges (FGCs) nationwide.

Faulting the move, ASCSN advised those interested in running secondary schools to build theirs.

The association’s secretary-general, Joshua Apebo, lamented that more than 10 years after the union stalled plans to sell the 110 FGCs, the collective wealth of millions of Nigerians to the privileged few, the matter was rearing its ugly head again.

He alleged that in Nigeria, portfolio-carrying investors always connive with greedy politicians to convert public companies and institutions into their private estates under the dubious Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model.

To this end, he called on the trade union movement, royal fathers, religious organisations, civil society groups, Parents Teachers Associations (PTA’s) and student unions, among others to unite as they did more than 10 years ago to prevent a situation where FGCs would be sold to “few parasitic individuals.”

He alleged that once the schools are ceded to private entrepreneurs, they would become money-spinners, and as such would be out of the reach of millions of Nigerian children, whose parents and guardians would not afford exorbitant fees that would be imposed on them.

He said the move would also affect thousands of teachers and other workers that would be thrown into the oversaturated labour market.

“Once education becomes a commodity only for the rich, it will be a violation of Section 18 of the 1999 Constitution as amended which stipulates, among other things, that the Government shall direct its policies towards ensuring that there are equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels.

“Indeed, Section 18 (3) provides that the Government shall strive to eradicate illiteracy and shall therefore provide free, compulsory, and universal primary education; free secondary education; free university education; and free adult literacy programme,” he said.

Apebo recalled that during the struggle to forestall the sale of FGCs, the union embarked on seven weeks strike, did intensive media campaigns, engaged lawyers, apart from a series of correspondences and meetings with government officials.

According to him, “It was discovered then that those who have been penciled down to buy the schools wanted to convert the vast expense of land and the structures therein into hotels and shopping malls to make profits because they do not have the interest of millions of students at heart.

“Communities who donated the land pledged to retrieve their land because they were donated to build schools for Nigerian children and not for the privileged few to make money.”

The union accordingly urged Nigerians not to stand by and watch the FGCs sold to the privileged rich and thereby mortgage the future of millions of Nigerian children.