The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Students protest

  • Travellers stranded as students protest

    Travellers stranded as students protest

    Students of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in Ile-Ife, Osun State, on Tuesday, took to the streets to protest the proposed hike in fees. Isaac Ibikunle, a 500-Level Law student and Students’ Union president-elect, led the demonstration.

    The protesters caused gridlock on the Ife-Akure Highway, leaving travellers stranded for hours. The students also prevented vehicles from passing at Ipetumodu Junction, which is opposite the Oduduwa University.

    The protesters played football on the expressway and sang solidarity songs to express their displeasure.

    Travellers going to Abuja, Ondo, Lagos, Ibadan and Ekiti came down from their vehicles after they were prevented from proceeding with their journey.

    They protesters, who displayed various placards, were joined by post-graduate students whose fees have also been hiked. They chanted anti-management songs, saying that the proposed increment was aimed at killing their poor parents.

    The inscription on the placards include: “Omole’s increment is Boko-Haramic”, “Omole, There is God oo” and “Fee hike is daylight robbery”, among others.

    Ibikunle said that after exploring all avenues to make the management see reason and reverse its decision, students had no option than to take to the streets. He said: “We will not destroy anybody’s property in the course of the protest. But the management must pity our parents; this is not a private school.”

    The chairman of the Murtala Muhammed Post-Graduate Hall, Chris Falola, said most of his colleagues applied for their Master’s degree because of their unemployment. “How would they pay the exorbitant fee?” he queried.

    A protester said asked: “How could Prof. Bamitale Omole, who led a protest against anti-people policies as an undergraduate, introduced the same policies as Vice-Chancellor?”.

    The students later moved through major roads in the ancient town and stopped at the palace of Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade.

    They were received by 11 chiefs, who assured them that the monarch would look into their matter.

  • UNIUYO: Group condemns killing of protesting students

    UNIUYO: Group condemns killing of protesting students

    A non-governmental organization- Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria has condemned operatives of the Akwa Ibom State police command over their alleged high-handedness and use of live firearms which resulted in the killing of some protesting students of the University of Uyo.

    In a media release jointly signed by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National media Affairs Director, Miss. Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA said operatives of the Nigerian police have serially failed to comply with the United Nations basic principles on the use of force and firearms during peaceful protest by the civil populace just as it urged for immediate remedial measures to be adopted to save more innocent lives.

    The group, who bemoaned what it called “trigger happy” tendencies of armed police operatives to always empty their sophisticated weapons on peaceful protesters, demanded that the Federal Government through relevant agencies like the National Human Rights Commission and the Police Service Commission must train the police operative across board on strategies for complying with extant national and international principles on the use of force and firearms by law enforcement officials.

    It pointed out that the police operatives lacked the discipline to always exercise restraint in situations such as peaceful demonstrations by Nigerians and this serial official indiscretion by the police have resulted in the extra-legal killings of hundreds of Nigerians over the last 14 years.

    “We are worried by the report filed in by Independent observers at Uyo, Akwa Ibom State venue of the students’ protests which pointed accusing fingers on the police operatives for escalating the peaceful protest into a riot when some of the armed operatives allegedly shot and killed about five or so students.

    “Nigeria must bring to an end these serial violations by police operatives of the fundamental right to life of innocent citizens through extra legal executions,” HURIWA, stated.

    The group reminded police hierarchy of the United Nations basic principles on the use of force and fire arms by law enforcement officials as follows; “Rules and regulations on the use of firearms by law enforcement officials should include guidelines that: specify the circumstances under which law enforcement officials are authorized to carry firearms and prescribe the types of firearms and ammunition permitted; ensure that firearms are used only in appropriate circumstances and in a manner likely to decrease the risk of unnecessary harm; prohibit the use of those firearms and ammunition that cause unwarranted injury or present an unwarranted risk; regulate the control, storage and issuing of firearms, including procedures for ensuring that law enforcement officials are accountable for the firearms and ammunition issued to them; provide for warnings to be given, if appropriate, when firearms are to be discharged; and provide for a system of reporting whenever law enforcement officials use firearms in the performance of their duty.”

    It also canvassed for independent probe of the circumstances surrounding the death by road accident on the Umuahia-Ikot Ekpene road of five national officials of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) on Thursday.

    The NANS officials were on their way to Uyo to meditate in the discord between students and management of the Federal University of Uyo which snowballed into peaceful students’ protest.

     

  • Tuition: OOU students protest government’s directives

    Tuition: OOU students protest government’s directives

    Students of Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, on Monday protested the state government’s directives, asking the institution authorities to stop students owing tuition fees from writing the Harmattan Semester examinations.

    Several students, including the university’s student union president have been arrested and taken to Ijebu-Igbo for questioning.

    The state government had earlier said students owing school fees would be barred from entering examination halls during the period.

    Following the expiration of the deadline given to students of the institution to regularize their records, the state government directed that only those that met the deadline should commence their examinations slated to begin on Monday.

    This was made known in a statement by the Secretary to the state Government, Taiwo Adeoluwa.

    The government warned all students who have not completed the registration formalities, or fully paid their school fees, to stay away from the university campuses.

    The government, Mr. Adeoluwa said, had compelled the university authorities to postpone the harmattan semester examination three times in the past to allow all students to regularize their records.

    He said five categories of students were identified in the student audit conducted by the Olusegun Osinowo Visitation Panel set up in 2011 to review situation in the university.

    The first category of students included those who are properly registered, have matriculation numbers and are up to date in the payment of their school fees.

    The second consist of students who have matriculation numbers but requested that they be allowed to pay their school fees in installment; while the third category are those who have matriculation numbers but have defaulted in the payment of school fees over the years because they claimed their parents could not afford to pay.

     

  • Students protest over non-accreditation of courses

    The crisis rocking the University of Abuja (UniAbuja), over course accreditation took a sad dimension yesterday, prompting the management to postpone the final-year students’ examinations till February 18.

    The examinations ought to have begun yesterday, but they were postponed following protests by some aggrieved students over non-accreditation of some courses.

    Problem started at 8am when engineering and medical students, who have been in a row with the university authority, locked the gate of the main campus.

    Other students, who had reported to sit for the examinations, were loitering outside the school premises in groups. Mobile policemen and soldiers were drafted to maintain law and order.

    An engineering student, who preferred anonymity, said management had “done nothing” in the last two months to purchase equipment in the faculty and they were tired of promises.