NEWS
UniLag students protest over increment of tuition fees
Another demonstration has broken out as University of Lagos, UniLag students air their complaints about the institution’s management raising tuition costs.
Students apparently organized a large-scale demonstration against the raise last week, which the university administration found difficult to handle because police officers allegedly shot tear gas at the demonstrators.
Several police formations in Lagos, including the Department of State Services (DSS), the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), and the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), are reported in the media to have taken control of the university’s entrance and prevented protesting students and others from entering the campus, disrupting the planned demonstration.
Although the incident was widely denounced, no action has yet been taken in response to the students’ request.
But this time, as their peers from other colleges joined them in solidarity, the irate students took to the streets once more to voice their objections louder.
Students from the Students Solidarity Group Against Students Hike and the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, took to the streets early on Tuesday to demonstrate against the institution’s management’s increase in tuition fees.
The demonstrators could be heard singing songs of unity as they proclaimed their determination to keep fighting and pressure the school administration to lower the fees.
The students were accompanied by security personnel from the Nigerian Police Force and members of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, or NSCDC, as a sign that they had taken a lesson from the outcome of the previous experience and were staging a second peaceful protest on the streets.
As thorough security checks were made to stop outsiders from entering the school grounds, security personnel barred the school gate.
Some of the protesting students who spoke to newsmen lamented the increase in tuition costs and expressed a lack of confidence in school authorities.
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The institution’s alleged indifference to students’ predicament was uncalled for and signaled a breakdown of trust between the two parties.
They claimed that the school administration lacked accountability and transparency with the way they handled the situation in recent weeks and that the students would continue to demonstrate until the increase in school fees was reversed.
The students were notably unimpressed by the institution’s most recent official press comments made in the midst of the conflicts.
The protesting students also demanded that the Federal Government take a proactive role by investing the money made from the elimination of fuel subsidies in education rather than allowing any increase in tuition because doing so would aggravate the students’ financial plight.
Remember that the institution recently demanded more than N190,000 in fees from students, up from just over N19,000 under the previous administration.
The school administration announced the increase in tuition costs for new and returning undergraduate students in July, citing “prevailing economic realities” as the justification.