Protests rock UNN over 300 per cent rise in tuition fees
From Lawrence Njoku, Enugu
STUDENTS of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), yesterday continued their protest against the introduction of a more than 300 per cent increase in school fees. The students alleged that the school authorities had raise the fees from N7,000 to between N40,000 and N60,000 per session.
The protest, which began last Friday, saw the students barricading the main gates of the Enugu Campus of the institution prompting the school's security personnel to lock them out along with university personnel and the staff and students of the neighbouring secondary and primary schools.
They also took the demonstration into nearby streets carrying green leaves and placards denouncing the University's Vice Chancellor, Professor Chinedu Nebo.
Some of the placards read: "We will never accede to tyranny". "Nebo is our nemesis", "No Negotiation of N40, 000 increase in fees".
The students also continued to defy an order given on Friday by the school authorities that they vacate the hostels in an apparent bid to quell the protests. The authorities had claimed that the protesting students were mainly those from the College of Medicine who were granted permission to stay in the school to sit for their examinations while the remaining students are currently on vacation. The students who saw the move as being high-handed, dared the authorities to evict them. They accused the authorities of deliberately dissolving the Students Union Government (SUG) of the school to knock out the platform for protest and negotiation before the increases were announced.
President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) Mr. Tony Nwonye, who is also a student of the school, said the protest would continue until the increases were reversed and insisted that no such decision could be effected without the students being consulted. He, however, said that the SUG was making efforts to meet with the school authorities to discuss possible ways out of the impasse.
There has been no reaction yet on the crisis from the school authorities.
A similar protest had greeted an attempt by Nebo's predecessor, Professor Ginigeme Mbanefo to increase the fees last year. The plan was dropped when the students then threatened to go into a full-scale riot with the authorities.
The Guardian learnt that the school authorities have been under intense pressure to raise funds to run the school since the Federal Government's refusal to increase its funding to the nation's universities directing them instead to generate the needed funds internally.
It was also learnt that the school authorities are faced with arrears of salaries and pensions which accumulated in the last six months and should the current increase fail, may be difficult for the school to run as its staff are threatening to embark on strike action beginning from next month to press for the payments.
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