EKSU students continue protest #GBB

From Charles Adegbite, Ado-Ekiti

Students of Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, on Friday continued their protestagainst the policy of "No fees, no lecture", which they started on Thursday.

This is in spite of the appeal from their "leaders" that they should stop the protest.

Although it was a peaceful demonstration, as it was on Thursday, they still maintained their position that the fees were outrageous.

They had placards with them and sang derisive songs as they protested.

They also carried symbolic caskets of the state Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, and the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Patrick Oladipo Aina, describing them as people who have money to give their children the best education but are denying the children of the poor the right to education.

The Chairman of the Students' Union Transition Committee, Adeoye Aribasoye, told Daily Sun that his Committee and Faculty Presidents of the university met with Fayemi and Aina on Thursday on the way out of the crisis.  

The governor, according to Aribasoye, agreed with their demands that they should be allowed to pay instalmentally because most of them cannot pay the tuition and other required fees at once. 

The VC was said to have also accepted their demands on the condition that they should give the university Senate two weeks to decide on the matter since it is a university policy.

The students, however, refused to stop the protest on the ground that they could not trust the students leaders because they were seen as stooges imposed on them by the authorities since they were handpicked.

All efforts to persuade the students to call off the protest did not succeed.

They insisted that the VC must address them, to be sure that the authorities meant was promised and not just a device to cajole them.

The students were still at the university gate preventing academic and administrative activities as at press time.

The VC has refused to address the students.