With one dead and many injured in Lekki tollgate protests, it became obvious that Lagos State Government is heedless of the public view on the recent developments in the metropolis.The government's uncompromising attitude on tuition fee hike of the state university, LASU is a sharp departure from the brilliant manner the state Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola handled the coroner health bill.When he knew that the coroner law could sprout a big problem, the governor sent it back to the Lagos State House of Assembly over an alleged typographical error. Coroner remains the only bill yet to be signed into law in Lagos State. The stance showed how meticulous the governor could be. On tax and demolition laws, the governor took time to sensitise the public and consequently enjoyed peoples' support throughout his first term in office. Though he was criticised at some points, Fashola was able to tame the planned protests by the public, especially on consumption tax.During the turbulent period of 'The Trueface of Lagos', a group, which alleged that the governor was involved in some financial misappropriation, Fashola was firm and his former Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Opeyemi Bamidele affirmed that the job was a bit easy because the governor was doing the right thing, which the public could see.At present, public opinion about Fashola is dwindling but the governor has refused to be bothered as he vigorously pursues the implementation of the state government's policies to the letter. He had personally apprehended erring commercial motorcyclists and recently drove to the newly inaugurated Lekki Toll Gate to pay, perhaps to enforce the decision that looked so unpopular to the public.The toll stands between N50 for motorcycles and N300 for trailers. A car owner pays between N120 and N150 while commercial buses pay N80.It is true that the road was built through a Public Private Partnership scheme that is by a concessionaire, the Lekki Concession Company (LCC), with the agreement to make its money through collection of toll, Lagos residents saw the idea as a good one but the toll collection as oppressive.To the protesters who stormed the toll gate last week Saturday, decisions of the state government in recent time were becoming too elitist despite the propaganda by the Action Congress of Nigeria that it runs a welfarist government in Lagos State.In fact, popular actress, Kate Henshaw, who featured prominently on Lagos tax promo and Bus Rapid Transit, BRT stood against the toll order. She was at the protest where several people were battered.Despite the calibre and number of people who detested the toll decision, the state government quickly reacted that the protest was politically motivated.Even if it was politically motivated, as claimed by the state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Lateef Ibirogba, that a top Peoples Democratic Party candidate who contested and lost during the last general elections was arrested, analysts believe that the protest succeeded because the toll gate decision is not popular.It must be noted that the major opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party in the state has been looking for an opportunity to puncture the agenda of the ACN government in Lagos and its comment on the present upheaval could be seen as a democratic gain.The toll collection on Lekki-Epe Expressway is one of the mistakes of the ACN regime. The tuition fee increment of Lagos State University is another one. PDP in Lagos has been dormant for many years possibly because the ACN and Fashola had recorded high public ratings but PDP has quickly capitalised on the recent occurrence to bring itself back to the light.On the toll, the government's resolve is to build infrastructure with modern facilities for its proposed megacity. No doubt, the 49 kilometre road obviously gives satisfaction to the state government, being the first technologically driven toll gate in the country.It is a beautiful edifice, no doubt, but its inauguration led to the arrest and incarceration of many Lagos residents who had expressed their fundamental human rights through protests.Residents had argued that the government failed to create alternative routes and thus creating problems for them but Fashola debunked the claim, saying the administration could not have enforced the law without alternative ways.The residents defied the police gun and teargas to stop the toll. They released themselves to the police to brutalise and arrest. They slept in the cell, fighting against what they did not believe in and when Fashola sensed their resoluteness, he personally visited the place to impose on them what they could not naturally accept.Although, the following day, the governor directed the police to release residents who were arrested during the protest, analysts viewed the arrest and the subsequent detention of protesters by the police as an infringement on peoples' fundamental human rights.To the government, the involvement of the police, which the residents viewed as barbaric was to forestall the breakdown of law and order.In this circumstance, The Friday Edition gathered that no property was destroyed by the protesters but the police who were supposed to broker the peace turned out to be enemies of the residents. As a matter of fact, journalists were also manhandled while some of their working tools were also damaged by the security agents.The state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Lateef Ibirogba expressed regrets that some journalists and media organisations were affected by the protest but pointed out that the Police stepped in to restore law and order.At present, commuters on the road are beginning to feel the impact as commercial buses have increased their fares by N50. Currently a passenger pays N250 as against N200 between Obalende and Ajah. The situation is worsened by heavy traffic jams caused by the delay in toll payment.However the Lekki Concession Company (LCC), the Concessionaire of the expressway, confirmed that the company was implementing various measures to ensure freer flow of traffic along the Lekki axis as the payment of tolls entered the sixth day.Now, the company provides both electronic cash payment to lessen the queue of vehicles at the tollgates. The electronic, which uses the Swift Pass Contactless Card, incidentally reduces the toll price straightaway by 5%, or the e-tag which reduces the price by 10% and also provides the car owner with the ability to earn frequent user discounts that give further price reductions.Before the Lekki protest, students of the state university had expressed their displeasure on the increased tuition fee by the state government. For years, the university had been in 'trouble' with 10 programmes disaccredited by the National Universities Commission for lacking the required facilities and human resources to run it.From the tenure of Late Professor Jadesola Akande, Professor Abisogun Leigh to Professor Lateef Hussain as vice chancellors, the institution was being run virtually as a free enterprise.Students paid N250 during the era of Leigh but the fee was subsequently increased to N25, 000 when Hussain came on board without any serious protest by the students but despite the increase, the university failed to get it right. It regularly flouted the NUC directive with no record of student's population, including those at the various satellite campuses.The appointment of Hussain was met with a crisis when students, academic and non-academic unions of the institution stood against his leadership style with various allegations of financial impropriety. He never enjoyed his tenure before he was booted out, following the recommendation of a visitation panel led by Justice Olaseinde Silva (rtd).The panel also recommended new tuition fees for students of the institution with those in the Faculty of Arts/Education to pay N193, 750; Social and Management Sciences N223, 750; Law N248, 750; Communication/Transport N238, 750; Science N258, 750; Engineering N298, 750; College of Medicine N348, 750.While approving the recommendations, the government directed that the new tuition fees would not be applied retroactively as current students are exempted from the increase that would take effect from 2011/2012 academic session.The panel also directed the institution's senate to embark on the clearance of the backlog of unissued certificates and set specific timelines for collation of results, issuance of certificates.According to the document, the government accepted the recommendation to improve the university's record keeping process by using Information Technology for the purpose of improving admission, registration, attendance, examination, marking of scripts, issuance of results and transcript.The Government noted the recommendation of the panel to a shift from Faculty to Collegiate System and decided that College of Medicine and Faculty of Engineering and Technology should operate the system while all others should run as Faculties.It arrived at this decision because the amendment of the LASU Law did not consider the full implication of the Collegiate System, the autonomy and independence of location to the extent that only College of Medicine and Faculty of Engineering were able to operate the Collegiate System successfully.Government accepted the recommendation of the panel as it relates to promotion/demotion/confirmation of appointments and directed that the University authorities should reconstitutes the appointments, promotion, and disciplinary committee in a manner that would ensure its impartiality to deal expeditiously with all pending matters.In the light of this, the government directed the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Ade Ipaye to review the cases of the six professors whose appointments were terminated and advise accordingly.On the cessation of external campus with effect from 2012, the government accepted the recommendation of the National Universities Commission to abolish the LASU external campus system with effect from 2012 and gradual phasing out of existing student population. It therefore directed the Governing Council and the Senate to ensure that the highest standard of education is delivered to the existing students.On the recommendation for the establishment of additional two state-owned universities, the Government noted it and restated its commitment to achieving optimum performance in terms of infrastructure, manpower training in the quality of staff and manpower development capacity in the quality of graduates produced by LASU before contemplating the establishment of any new university.The Government also accepted the recommendation to establish a proper relationship between the Students Affairs Office and the Students Union and therefore directed the location of office of the Student Affairs under the Office of the Vice ChancellorThe Government accepted the recommendation of the panel to improve the image of the University and directed the University authorities to liaise with the Ministries of Information and Strategy, Transportation and Office of the Special Adviser on Education to work out modalities for the re-branding.NUC had disaccredited programmes, including Law, Economics, Marketing, Chemical and Polymer Engineering, Accounting, Banking and Finance, Political Science, Sociology, Business Administration and Management Technology due to lack of facilities and quality academics.Investigation revealed that LASU would need N4.122 billion to solve some of its immediate problems for accreditation out of which N1.1billion was released by the state government. In other words, the institution would need an extra N3.022 billion to move on which the government asked the school to source on its own.The increment, however is one of the ways the government intended to source for funds, even when it has failed to meet the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisations' recommended budget for education. According to UNESCO, education must take 26 per cent of the annual budget but in Lagos the appropriation for education has hovered between 14 and 16 per cent in the last three years.The question is, did the government consider the new increment when it pegged the budget on education at 16 per cent' Or will the government ensure that the subvention for LASU is increased to 26 per cent of its annual budget, now that an average student will pay between N193, 000 and N348, 000 instead of N25, 000'The only explanation the government had offered was that it would keep to its scheme of scholarship and bursary for Lagos indigent students. The question again is whether the government will continue with the bursary of N10, 000 and N20, 000 for the students or it will increase it'These are questions that need some answers and critical in the minds of parents who earn N18, 000 minimum wage as civil servants and want to enrol their children in LASU. To them, the government has indirectly moved tertiary education away from the reach of poor people in the guise of building quality structure for the state. In their moves to get answers to these questions, the students had taken their protest to the street as they stormed the popular Lagos-Badagry Road calling on the government to rescind its decision or face their wrath. The protest did not only stagnate the institution's academic activities, it stopped some final year students of the institution from writing the General Studies' GNS test.In their anger, the students hijacked a trailer and a vehicle belonging to the state Bus Rapid Transit to block the road but were curbed by the state Rapid Response Squad to forestall any criminal activity that might arise from the protest, which lasted for several hours.The second semester examination and other academic activities at the Lagos State University have been put on hold on as students continued to protest the increment. They stormed the state House of Assembly and the state television station, LTV. They threatened the government with a mass rally to be led by the National Association of Nigerian Students but the governor refused to shift his position. The issue became a subject of debate at the state House of Assembly, which summoned the institution's authority and various unions but for the executive arm of the government, the increment must stay.Fashola explained that the government could not continue to work under the pretence of running a good institution, adding that it would not allow the poor trend to continue. 'I truly fear that the negative and potential explosive and social dichotomy that the bad quality education will generate in the future will consume us.'He said before government took the decision, the state executive council carefully considered the current state of infrastructure and personnel in the institutions vis-a-vis what it should be and also considered the cost of properly funding the institution as against what currently accrued to it from all sources.
Click here to read full news..
