The students of Federal University Oye-Ekiti , Ekiti State, on Monday protested what they described as poor learning facility in the school, asking the Federal Government to provide more funds to complete some approved projects on the university campuses.
The angry students blocked the gates of the school from about 5 am on Monday and mounted roadblocks to prevent anyone from entering the school. They demanded for the attention of the Vice Chancellor, (VC) Prof. Kayode Shoremekun. They laid siege at the gates for hours expecting the VC.
Meanwhile, the Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Kayode Shoremekun who alleged that findings from his management has shown that students who have refused to pay school fees and who have been barred from being part of the forthcoming examination may be behind the protest. He also said his probe showed that students may be protesting against the delay in completing the main Library abandoned by his predecessor.
He said that while serious effort have been made to improve the school facility, protocols which have to be followed as demanded by the Ministry or education has slowed down the process of getting some facility, especially the abandoned main library in proper shape.
He assured that the library will be in place in May and hinted that management is engaging the students representative in dialogue to end the crisis.
He, however, warned that students who failed to pay fees will not be allowed to take part in the exams.
Speaking to newsmen on the demands by the students, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Students Union Government (SUG) Comrade Omofoye Adetola, said: “The SUG reached an agreement yesterday night to stage a peaceful protest today. Our demands are that our road in phase 3 and to Engineering faculty must be fixed, the building of makeshift classrooms in faculties of education, health, engineering and others approved must start now. Although the school management has approved the Ikole campus Sports complex but its building has not commenced. We want the WiFi connection in both Oye and Ikole campuses to start immediately. The management is right in non-payment of school but we have been appealing to them to pay promptly and they have been responding well for the past two weeks. We urge the management to review the payment of the fees to assist the students,” he said.
Reacting to the development, Professor Shoremekun said: “I have already had extensive consultations with those in Ikole campus last week and I had promised that out of our paucity resources we will attend to their complaints which are building classrooms, providing street light, classroom,s sinking of boreholes and are already doing some of them as I speak to you.
” Having dialogued with them, I am surprised that they are now protesting. My suspicion is that those who are behind this are those who don’t want to pay their school fees and they know that exams are coming and to that extent, they are trying to cause problems for the university and in the process, they are causing problems for themselves.
Our students are sold on the culture of over-entitlement but now the university has to draw a line which we have done by insisting that you won’t take exams if you haven’t paid fees.
” As regards Oye campus, this is ironical, because I am surprised that they are doing this also. Intelligent reports showed that they want us to begin to use the abandoned library by past administration.
”We are at the moment trying to ensure that the library is functional as we are providing power, water and others. The federal government through its provision of recent revitalization has given us some money which we are trying to use now to make sure the library is habitable but we have to go through the Budget Monetary committee as prescribed by the Federal Ministry of education and also advertised among others and we have been on that and that by May this year, the library will be in good shape and the old library will be used for our proposed faculty of Law.
In spite of the fact that their moral platform is very weak, we are still having dialogue with them,” he said.
