Student unions should be allowed to function freely, says Saeed Ghani

Sindh Minister for Information, Archives and Labour Saeed Ghani praised the concept of a student council while addressing the swearing-in ceremony of the newly-elected members of the Sindh Madressatul Islam University’s student council as a chief guest on Friday.

He said the concept was very good as it provided opportunities to students of the varsity to learn and move forward. Despite a ban on student organisations in universities for years, incidents of fights among students had been reported. Student councils or student unions could not be banned due to any problematic situation in universities, he said.

Ghani said student unions provided an environment for students to have an understanding of politics but unfortunately in our country student unions and trade unions were banned. He said that if we would not let good people get into politics then bad people would take the charge.

The minister said he had been through extremely difficult situations in life, adding in his grandfather's days, the family members even struggled to get food. He said if he could become a minister and a senator, anyone could easily reach this level or better than this. Today's youth had more opportunities than the people of his time, he said.

Ghani said since Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah studied at the Sindh Madressahtul Islam University; the importance of the varsity was far greater than any other university. He said a dictator banned student unions to suppress the movement against him. The local government elections and student unions had produced credible leaders and politicians, and they should be allowed to function freely.

Ghani said there was a very important polio meeting in the province, which was supposed to be attended by the Chief Secretary and Inspector General of Police, but after the Prime Minister's call, they left for Islamabad. The PM had a right to meet his MPAs and allies but it was not appropriate to call the Chief Secretary and IGP in meetings. It seemed as if the prime minister wanted to run a parallel government in Sindh through the chief Secretary and IGP Sindh.

The Sindh government seriously wanted to eradicate polio but it seemed polio eradication had no significance in the PM’s view.