Escalations of violence on the backs of student arrests have been recurrent in recent days at the University of Lome. While all eyes are focused on political news, the social front is also agitated. Youth is the future of the nation, very often the politicians. Basile Amenuveve, General Secretary of the Synergie of Students and Students of Togo (SEET), student at the University of Lomé sheds light on the platform of this university youth claim, longstanding claims that do not end with lots victims throughout the history of the country.
Hello, can you give your identity to our readers?
Hello, I answer the name of Basile AMENUVEVE, I am the Secretary General of the Synergie of Students and Students of Togo (SEET). It is a student union organization with the aim of working to improve the living conditions and studies of the student and school youth of Togo. In order to avoid amalgams around the association, the members of the executive office have firstly constituted the files to register at the Ministry of Territorial Administration of Decentralization and Local Communities on September 10, 2018.
How SEET perceives education in general in Togo?
Togolese education is out of order. That is why we need real reform in this key sector.
Let us take stock of the situation at the University of Lomé
It should be noted that there is an urgent need to respond to the legitimate demands of students: the reprogramming of examinations in each faculty, the increase of allocations and scholarships, the acceleration of the construction of amphis, the offer of internships to students at the end of the course, the provision of two buses per artery.
And just recently, the university police besieged the Lomé campus with unprecedented barbarity. Two (2) students still in detention at an unknown location. And a tough intervention of the police and the national gendarmerie.
Is the intervention of the police (police and gendarmerie) not necessary to avoid escalations of violence and the destruction of university infrastructures by discontented students?
Not at all, the Togolese student is mature and understands the need for infrastructure. It is police provocation and the overriding will of the authorities that causes discontent. When we do not meet the needs of youth, at least it shows its displeasure freely! This is also democracy and the rule of law.
The current management team of the University of Lomé, under the aegis of prof. Dodzi Kokoroko nevertheless brandishes a number of achievements and thinks better with time.
Since the arrival of Prof. Dodzi KOKOROKO, we have indeed made progress that we welcome. However, the needs remain enormous and we, as a trade union, claim the most urgent needs. We have no intention of doing too much. We are just concerned about the best conditions of study.
What exactly are these urgent needs? Make a detailed list
It is a question of the reprogramming of the examinations in each teaching unit, the offer of the internships to all the students at the end of the course, the increase of the allocations and scholarships respectively to 22.000f and 32.000f per month followed by the suppression of the age criteria for obtaining them. It is also necessary to speak of the equivalence between the license of the LMD system to that of the classic one, the making available of two buses by artery, the construction of the amphis and quoted according to the needs of the hour. The lifting of measures going against the freedoms of demonstrations and regrouping on the Lomé campus, the reduction of the Galilée computer project costs to 80,000 CFA francs.
Similarly, the resumption of the necessary provisions to avoid physical and psychological aggression against students by the police and the gendarmerie
What do the university administration and the government say about this platform?
The authorities say they are available for all discussions, but remain unrealistic in the face of the facts. We must therefore be more positive to ensure the serenity and continuity of activities. It is also an opportunity for me to expressly invite the academic and governmental authorities to open, in a very short time, serious discussions with the student unions and teachers for a definitive way out of this crisis which is a shame for our country.
Yes, slightly. And that's another student claim. That the authorities react in time. Students will decide what to do next Tuesday at the University auditorium. We are not going to fall into this game of making the claims of authorities sleep. We will be more strategic and more diplomatic.
We are asking for the release of arrested comrades because they are all entitled to the exam just like us. And SEET reiterates its concern for their release.
I congratulate the students for their determination and I invite the other associations to convergent actions. Authorities to meet the demands and respect the academic freedom.
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