The Joint Action Front (JAF) has strongly condemned the brutality of the Nigerian Police on the orders of the Lagos State University (LASU) Vice Chancellor on protesting students, and demanded the immediate reversal of the hiked tuition fees in LASU and unconditional re-opening of the institution without any victimization.
The Joint Action Front (JAF) has strongly condemned the brutality of the Nigerian Police on the orders of the Lagos State University (LASU) Vice Chancellor on protesting students, and demanded the immediate reversal of the hiked tuition fees in LASU and unconditional re-opening of the institution without any victimization.
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The students had engaged on the action in response to the closure of the university portal that denied them access to completion of their registration to enable them to write examinations.
In a statement on Tuesday, JAF noted that media reports indicated the protest, which took place in front of the institution’s Senate building, was peaceful, with the students displaying placards to express their voices against the closure of the portal.
“The students were reported to have pleaded, by prostrating before the VC to consider the re-opening of the portal, but rather than accede to their germane demand, the VC went ahead to invite the Police to REPRESS the protest,” it said.
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JAF recalled that it has consistently maintained that LASU is prone to crises because of the wicked increases in school fees since 2011, its students paying school fees ranging from N193,000 to N350,000, in a State where the government is defaulting in implementing the N18,000 National minimum wage.
“The anti-poor hike in LASU tuition fee, which used to be N25,000, had led to several thousand students dropping out of the university and others offered admission not being able to enroll into the university, because it is impossible for the poor parents and residents, who constitute more than 90% of those living below the poverty line, to pay such outrageous fees,” it said.
It stressed that the current crisis arising from the closure of the portal system of registration further depicted the callousness of the university authorities to poor students and their parents, some of whom had to squeeze themselves dry to raise such abominable fees on the eve of their examinations.
JAF warned: “The realities that the Nigerian public and Lagosians in particular, should note is that, the Lagos State Government is bent on its anti-poor Education policies, which explains why it refuses to adequately fund public education, in order to make Lagos the exclusive preserve of the few Rich at the expense of the majority poor parents and students that will never be able to pay.”
In the statement, JAF also deplored Monday’s attack and brutality by the security operatives of the Adekunle Ajasin University Akungba (AAUA) on the orders of the Vice Chancellor of the University on the Chairman of ASUU AAUA – Dr. Busuyi Mekus and other ASUU members from the University of Ibadan and Benue State University who were in the AAUA premises for a meeting.
It noted that the unprovoked attack by AAUA dictatorial authority earned the brutalised ASUU members serious injuries and landed them in the hospital.
“It should be recalled that Professor Femi Mimiko has denied non-academic staff in AAUA the exercise of their trade union rights and is at the same time in a war to kill ASUU in AAU,” the statement said. “This is a battle he can never win.”
JAF further called for:
• An immediate stop to the continued harassment of academic and non-academic staffs in AAUA and urged the students, lecturers and non-academic staff in the university to join forces to RESIST Professor Femi Mimiko’s authoritarian administration of the university;
• An end to police and security operatives’ brutality of students, lecturers and non-academic staff in both universities; and
• An environment of Academic Freedom to allow students, lecturers and non-academic staff to freely express their legitimate and statutory rights and responsibilities.
The statement was signed by Dr. Dipo Fashina, JAF chairperson, and Comrade Abiodun Aremu, the group’s Secretary.
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