The executive
members of the students’ union government of Ambrose Alli University,
Ekpoma, have directed students of the institution not to pay more than
half of their school fees for the current academic session. This is
coming just as they decry the poor state of infrastructure of the
state-owned school.
The union also
called on the President Goodluck Jonathan, the Senate president,
traditional rulers, and other well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on the
state governor, Adams Oshiomhole, to reduce the fees currently charged
by the school authority.
The students’ body
made the call over the weekend while addressing journalists at the press
centre of the state chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists over
the dearth of infrastructural facilities and the high fees they are made
to pay in the school.
In a press statement
jointly signed by Itote Damis, Osaguona Johnbosco, the union’s
president and secretary general respectively, the students expressed
disappointment over the recently announced 300 per cent increase in the
schools fees.
The students’
leaders also condemned the sudden increase of their fees from N18, 000
to N62, 000, which they alleged had forced a good number of students to
abandon their studies in the university as their parents could no longer
afford to pay the new rates.
They noted that the
school is located in a community where majority of the people are
peasant farmers, petty traders, commercial motorcyclists, and pensioners
who could barely afford three square meals, hence such fees would not
be affordable.
Further raising more
complaints, the students union stated that “to worsen the situation,
some parents and guardians of the students have had their shops and
kiosks demolished by the Major Lawrence Oloye-task force set up by
Governor Oshiomhole in the name of beautifying the city, thereby
subjecting them and their children to abject poverty and untold
hardship.”
Deliberate attempt
They, therefore,
accused the state governor of “a deliberate attempt to deprive
Nigerians, particularly Edo State indigenes of their educational rights,
an action which clearly contradicts his promise during his
electioneering campaigns in 2007 to make education free at all levels.
“It is disheartening
to note that since the assumption of office as the governor of Edo
State, Ambrose Alli University has not received a carton of chalk from
Governor Oshiomhole, let alone witnessed any infrastructural development
by his administration,” they said.
Quoting chapter 4 of
the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, which places the responsibility of
providing food, shelter, security, education, and others on of
governments at all levels, the students averred that the state
government is expected to “provide adequate infrastructure, teaching
aids and facilities, enough manpower (academic and non academic), and
adequate subvention for Ambrose Alli University and other state owned
citadels of learning, as part of its social services being rendered to
the people.”
They, therefore,
called on the governor to “reverse the tuition fees of Ambrose Alli
University within the next two weeks; failure to do so, the Union will
not hesitate to do everything within its power to legally drive home its
demand.”
