Hike In School Fees: Crisis At UNILAG As Security Operatives Shoot Sporadically, Arrest Protesting Student

By Akinwale Kasali

There is pandemonium at the University of Lagos, UNILAG, as protesting Students are  chased, arrested and forcefully dispersed by Security Operatives who are alleged to have shot sporadically into the air.

The unrest at the Federal Institution was as a result of the increment in the Tuition Fee, which didn’t augur well with the Students who resorted to staging a protest at the school premises.

In a Live Video on Social Media, the protesting students could be seen running helter skelter as gunshots are heard.

The Students could also be heard shouting on top of their voices against the arrests by Security Operatives.

It would be recalled that the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, vowed to go on with their planned massive protest  Wednesday, September 6, against the recent increment in school fees by some federal universities in the country, insisting that the increment will never come to stay.

The students’ body asked the institutions which had already started implementing their own increment to be ready for them or stop the policy forthwith and refund any student who might have paid the new fees.

In a statement on Monday, Temitope Giwa, a final Year Student of UNILAG, NANS’ Public Relations Officer, said nothing would stop them from protesting as planned.

Giwa insisted that the entire UNILAG and other Nigerian students reject any fee hike by any public tertiary school be it university or polytechnic in the country.

He explained again that they had made this position with genuine reasons known repeatedly not only to the public but also to President Bola Tinubu by officially communicating their objection to the fee hike to him.

According to NANS, “We have let the president Know that our parents are going through very difficult times, the experience of which they have never had in Nigeria’s history.

“That the recent removal of subsidy on fuel in particular has brought untold hardship on them and also on us. Our parents have suffered enough hardship and to add fee hike to their struggles is to suffocate them.

“So, we have not shifted our ground on this matter as the economy rather bites harder each day in the land.“