Date 2014-06-03
Category Gist & Gossip
The students were protesting the hiked fee regime, which they said they couldn’t cope with. Their campus had been shut down yesterday, after the students began mobilizing to embark on protest. The students said they had submitted their proposed fees to the Lagos State Government after their meeting with Governor Babatunde Fashola last April.
Fashola had promised to review their tuitions
fee downward. The Governor, who himself benefited from free education at the University of Benin, had requested the students to propose tuition.
President of the Lagos State University Students Union, Comrade Nurudeen Yusuf Temilola said the students had proposed N46, 500 for returning students and N65, 000 for fresh students. He said the Governor promised to review it and make his pronouncement on it, but the management of the Lagos State University (LASU) had announced closure of the students’ registration portal, giving deadline of May 30th. Yusuf Temilola said the student pleaded with the Lagos State Government to make its promised pronouncement qu!ckly, and the management to wait for the government to come up with its decision before closing the portal, but both had worked against their pleas.
The students said today’s protest rally was planned to address women and traders in Oshodi market so they can add their voices to pressure the State Government to announce its proposed fee on time, but they were attacked by the police as they approached their destination.
Three students are said to have collapsed from
police teargas and gun attack on them. Several
others are reportedly injured. More than ten of the students were also whisked away in police vans and it could not be immediately confirmed where they have been taken.
The police brutal attack on the students today is in a manner similar to its onslaught on Polytechnics students on Wednesday 28th May, where the police in Yaba area of Lagos fired upon the unarmed students.
The students condemned the attack on them by the police, describing men of the Nigerian Force as cowards who only harass unarmed and peaceful civilians but become qu!ckly overwhelmed when confronted by criminals, terrorists and militants.
