Nigerian constitutional lawyer, Tope Temokun, has slammed the nation's secret police, the Department of State Services (DSS), describing its comments on planned students' protest against arbitrary school fees hike in tertiary institutions as misleading.
SaharaReporters reported on Monday that the DSS said it had uncovered plans by some unnamed people to organise violent protests in the country over the country’s socio-economic challenges.
The secret police had in a statement issued by its spokesman, Peter Afunanya, said intelligence reports indicated that the plotters included certain politicians who were desperately mobilising unsuspecting student leaders, ethnic-based associations, youths and disgruntled groups for the planned action.
Reacting in a statement issued, on Tuesday, titled: "Regime Of Fee Hikes Everywhere: SSS statement is made in bad faith as students have the rights to protest" the legal luminary, Temokun, rejected the DSS threats and claim.
According to him, "Students of the Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Edo State started their public outcry few days ago when both the new and the returning students could not afford the new fees imposed on them which led to students’ protest and the eventual closure of that school.
"Today, the University of Lagos is engulfed in crisis of students-university management confrontation for the same reason of increase in fees."
Temokun said that DSS, as expected in reacting to waves of protest across the tertiary institutions against astronomical increase in cost of education, stated that it uncovered plans by the youths to stage violent protests to discredit the federal government and security agencies over sundry socio-economic matters.
"This allegation coming from the secret police appears a mere red-herring, a diversionary tactic and a post-dated justification of violent crackdown on the students' protests by the law enforcement agents.
"The statement betrays itself as a strategy to give a colouration of political partisanship to genuine students protest against unbearable and unaffordable cost of education resulting from poor economic policy of the government, in order to mislead the public to believe their protest is not about the fees hike but other motives, when we all know its the insensitive policy of increase in fees that is at the root of the restlessness in our campuses and nothing more, nothing less.
"No doubt, in their dubious calling, the politicians will always be out to pursue their selfish political agenda as usual by whatever means, but leave the students out of the politicians’ game and let them breathe, let the youths breathe, let the students react to the fees hike with their constitutional expression of peaceful protest.
"In case the SSS pretendnot to know, increase in tuition fees in different epochs across generations have pushed the students into confrontation with the university managements, which have either been resolved at the barricade or at the roundtable. This time is not different, students would definitely resist.
"The release from the SSS linking the students’ protest with politicians is made in bad faith! Scrap the increment in fees today and see if there would be no peace in our campuses."