By Folaranmi Ajayi
A large number of students at the University of Ibadan, UI, have protested against sharp increase in school fees and power outage, among others that made campus life unbearable.
Sources said that the mass action commenced as early as 8 a.m, just as the visibly angry students moved in large numbers to all the entrances of the institution and barricaded them.
Academic and non-academic staff were locked outside the gates. And, after blocking all the entrances, the irate students moved from one faculty to another to ensure that academic activities were distorted.
Also, the protesters kicked against any form of video recording of the protest, while they complained about poor treatment being allegedly meted out to them by the school management.
Some of them who spoke with journalists said three issues compelled them to embarked on the organized demonstration.
“We are protesting against injustice and insensitivity of the state school authorities to our plight.”
“You can imagine the authorities saying they will be shedding power henceforth, which means there are days we will be in darkness. How do they expect us to study?”
“Secondly, they have hiked school fees astronomically to an unimaginable proportion. Do they want us to abandon our studies? Our parents are saying there is no money. Even feeding is difficult and we are still trying to wriggle out of this they are bringing hike in tuition fees. We cannot take this any longer. Enough is enough,” a concerned student says.
Continuing, he said: “The third issue is the victimization of some of our colleagues who protested last time. The police have arrested them and up till now, they are still being detained for saying no to injustice.
“They are hurting us and they don’t want us to complain.”
Meanwhile, three female science students said the situation had become quite unbearable for them as they had to pay through their noses.
Sharing her own ordeal, a female student explained how she gained admission paying about N78,000, but now she iwas being asked to pay over N300,000; while some are others were paying N200,000.
For instance,The student demonstration disrupted the early take-off of a programme scheduled for 10 a.m. at the Department of Economics, CBN Hall.
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