EBEN ENASCO REPORTING….
Students of the University of Benin, UNIBEN, have protested what they Claimed is a newly introduced additional 20,000 Naira for late payments of school fee by the authority of the Institution.
The Protest also led to a political science student who was part of the protest and said to be asthmatic collapsed and rushed to health center of the Institution, as she was seen grasping for air.
The agitating Protesters who occupied the busy Benin Ugbowo Lagos Road, granded commercial activities with various placard inscriptions, stating their plights, as
motorist and commuters who spoke to our Correspondent lamented the incident.
The raging students also want an end to extortion and lack of proper students’ welfare, whilst other students noted that, the school administration’s decision is suffocating and placing them in difficult conditions with such Policies, hence they embarked on the protest.
Recall that, the management of the University of Benin had earlier ordered that students who failed to pay their school fee within the stipulated time will face extra charges and would likely have their studentship withdrawn.
According to the Institution, the increment is for late payment, but students have now said that the late payment is supposed to commence in the 2nd semester and not the 1st semester, causing wide range of unrest around the University community Tuesday.
However, attempts by the School Security Operatives to stop the raging students yielded Little or no results as they besieged the administrative building of the Vice Chancellor, Professor Lilian Salami chanting and calling for her to address the situation.
The Vice Chancellor, Professor Lilian Salami and Dr Benedicta Ehanire, Public Relations Officer of the University who were earlier reported to have flee their seats in their bids to avoid comments over the protest, have now released a statement urging students to vacate earliest, noon of Wednesday, September 15, 2021 from hostels and other school facilities.
In a statement signed by the University Registrar late Tuesday, said the Vice Chancellor Lilian Salami ordered the vacation of students from the campus to avoid hoodlums infiltrating the Protest.
Meanwhile, a member of the Protesting student who sorted for anonymity alleged the Vice Chancellor to have told the student during one of their engagements with the authority, that to be educated is not a right but a privileged.
A development, the student claimed, have erupted tensions and expanded tendons as trust they said was betrayed.