Students Protest, Disrupt Activities At UI Over Hike In Tuition Fees

Thousands of students at University of Ibadan, in the Oyo State capital disrupted both academic and non-academic activities in protest  against a hike in school fees and other issues

The aggrieved students as  early as 8 a.m., moved in large numbers to all the entrances of Nigeria's premier university and blocked them, preventing both academic and non-academic staff from coming into the campus 

They later moved from one faculty to another to ensure that academic activities were totally paralysed.

The students who did not allow any form of  video recording of the protest, complained bitterly about the hike in the tuition fees , describing the action by the school management as very unfair to them.

Some of them students who spoke during the protest, raised three issues which led to the demonstration 

One the students, a male accused the school of injustice, saying the management is not sensitive to the plights of students 

“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?” he asked rhetorically 

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”.

“The third issue is the victimization of some of our colleagues who protested last time. The police have arrested them and up to now, they are still being detained for saying no to injustice. They are hurting us and they don’t want us to complain.”

Also speaking three female students studying  science related courses narrated tough situation being experienced in the school, how they paid  through their noses.

One of them claimed that she paid around N78,000 after gaining admission into the university, wondering how she is going to pay over N300,000 when asked to do 

According to her , some of the students are to  pay N200,000.

The demonstration disrupted the take off of  programme at  Department of Economics, CBN Hall slated  to hold at 10 a.m