The University of Ibadan Branch of the Education Rights Campaign, ERC, has berated the purported endorsement of the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, for the Saturday’s elections by the university’s Students Union President, Adewole Adeyinka.

The group said it was appalled that the president of Nigerian students union could choose to endorse Tinubu, a pro-capitalist politician who could not be trusted to defend and protect the interest of Nigerian students from operation.

ERC in a statement by its UI Branch Secretary, Alesh Debs, stated that only a government formed by the workers and the poor, and based on socialist programmes, could satisfy the needs of the students and their parents.

According to the statement, "ERC faults this declaration and strongly believes that it is an affront on mass of the students in the University of Ibadan.

"This is partly because the decision for such a declaration was unilaterally taken by MASCOT and his co-travellers who deliberately failed to create an avenue like a congress or mass meeting of students where such a sensitive political issue could have been suggested to a democratic discussion among the rank and file of students.

"Again, we strongly feel that the presidential ambition of Tinubu doesn’t deserve any support from mass of the Nigeria students. His recent public statement and antecedent have clearly shown that he is an anti-student, pro-capitalist politician who cannot be trusted with the defence of the interest and aspiration of the Nigeria students.”

The statement added, "From his manifesto, Tinubu, just like Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, is planning to introduce high tuition fees in public universities and thereby deny the children from the working class and the poor background access to university education.”

ERC, however, advised that students should not support candidate with manifest anti-student policy on education.

The group recalled that it was when Tinubu was the Chancellor of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho, between 2011 and 2018 that the university was shut down for close to a year owing to strike over poor pay and working condition embarked upon by both the Academic and Non-academic Staff of the University.

The ERC maintained that APC presidential candidate did nothing as the father figure of the institution to resolve the issues that led to the industrial action.

The ERC said, "Since he began his presidential bid, he has been making different donations in hundreds of millions or billions of naira to groups in distress. However, nothing was donated by him to the university to help resolving the funding problem, especially when the university alumni associations embarked on a drive for donations to the university.

"It is in the light of this background coupled with the alleged link to the repression of EndSARS protests and Lekki killing that we strongly hold that MASCOT unilateral endorsement on behalf of students of University of Ibadan is unacceptable

"Therefore, we call for an immediate withdrawal of such a declaration by Mr MASCOT with an open apology tendered to mass of students of the University of Ibadan.

"As far as we are concerned in ERC no government formed by pro-capitalist political parties like APC, PDP and the misnamed Labour Party can be trusted for the defence of the interests and aspiration of Nigeria Students and their poor parents.

"Only a government formed through a pro-working people political party and run on the basis of socialist policies including public ownership of the commanding heights under the democratic control of working people that can guarantee an adequate defence of the interests of working masses and Nigeria Students through the judicious use and management of the wealth and resources of the society to meet and satisfy the needs of all."