Less than 24 hours after Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State
announced the review of the contentious school fee, the Lagos State
University Students Union (LASUSU) yesterday rejected the offer,
insisting on 67 per cent reduction across board.
Addressing newsmen on the state government’s gesture at the
International Press Centre (IPC), Ogba, LASUSU President, Yusuf
Nurudeen, said the student body did not accept 34 per cent and 60 per
cent announced by the governor on Wednesday.
The students union president also faulted the claim by the Vice
Chancellor, Prof. John Obafunwa, that no student had dropped out of LASU
since the fee hike in 2011, saying figures before the union revealed
that over 1,000 students quit.
Nurudeen, who addressed newsmen alongside LASUSU Treasurer, Adeboye
Paul and the General Secretary, Orji Emeka, said when the state
government increased the fee in 2011, it was not done based on
percentage, rather, they made the pronouncement in naira and kobo.
His words: “We urge government to come out in extant words as to how
much will be payable by our students in naira and kobo and not in
percentage. How do they expect our parents, the market women scrambling
to pay our fees, calculate the percentage?”
According to him, what LASU students wanted was for the state
government to reduce the fees on compassionate ground as contained in
their proposal to the governor dated April 3, 2014 noting: “We recognise
the fact that the governing council is statutorily empowered by the law
that established LASU to consider the school fee. Even if we want to
accept the percentage reduction, we can only accept 67 per cent across
board.”
He recalled that after several protests by LASU students, Governor
Fashola asked the union to submit a proposal based on what the students
could afford, thus a proposal of N46,500 tuition fee for old students
and N65,500 for freshers was prepared after consultations with
stakeholders and submitted to the governor.
“The proposal was sent to the governor on April 24, 2014. The
proposal was followed by several reminders. We discovered that the Lagos
State Government was not ready to listen to our yearnings and
aspirations. We decided to embark on peaceful protests to sensitise the
public and demand that our proposal on the reduction of fee should be
approved,” he said.
On the drop out issue raised by the vice chancellor, Nurudeen said
the students union was saddened by the comments attributed to Prof.
Obafunwa that no student dropped out of school since 2011 when the state
government introduced the fee hike.
He words: “I don’t know where the vice chancellor got his figures.
All facultie students are dropping out because of the high tuition fees.
More than 1,000 have dropped out. We presented about three of such
students to Governor Fashola as evidence when he demanded to see those
affected.”
Nurudeen accused the Lagos State Police Command of assaulting and
arrest students on peaceful protest, adding that 10 students were
injured, 14 others were arrested while eight were arraigned before a
Magistrate Court in Ikeja.
One of the protester claimed that, following the controversial hike, the school has continually had a low number of choice applications from candidates in the annual Unified Tertiary Examinations. Report has it that, this year, no disciplinary faculty in the institution has up to 500 students.
