Civic Group Mobilises UNILAG Students For Protest Over School Fees, Faculty, Departmental Fee

Civic Group Mobilises UNILAG Students For Protest Over School Fees, Faculty, Departmental Fee

A civil rights movement, Students Solidarity Group Against Fee Hike, has called on the University of Lagos (UNILAG) students to brace up for protests even as they noted that the university authorities devised backdoor channels to exploit from students in the name of faculty and departmental fees.

The University has successfully turned indigent Akokaites to beggars on social media and public spaces. All social media platforms ranging from Twitter, telegram, instagram, WhatsApp are completely filled with appeals from UNILAG students who are begging the general public for help. GoFundMe broadcasts on WhatsApp is as numerous as Jaja bedbugs.

Students are now street beggars just to be able to retain and continue the programs they started. Those who can’t withstand the pressure are contemplating suicide.

There were reports that the DSA and several top management team are accomplices in the hostel racketeering business, to the extent that the DSA was seeking option of fine from hostel racketeers in place of the usual punishment.

Do not forget that it took a radical protest from students living with disabilities to get their usual accommodation slots as the University was ready to sell those spaces out to the highest bidder. For the University authorities, hostel racketeering is not a big deal so far they get a chunk of the proceeds of such illegal business.

The statement titled: “Indigent Students Betrayed, All Promises Cancelled (APC) Extend The Registration Deadline Now,” partly read: “The Student Solidarity Group (SSG) has consistently maintained that no amount of palliative put forward by the University authorities could cater for the overwhelming number of indigent students.

“The betrayal of the indigent students began with their exclusion from the balloting exercise, as the University authorities, with the process, sent a clear message that the hostels are meant for “just the rich” who can afford to pay the fees. The University was ready for a full blown commercialisation.