BARELY few weeks after the students of the Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo, Lagos trooped to the streets to protest the 725 per cent increment in their tuition fees,they stormed the LASU MBA Hall, last week to halt the indigeneship verification exercise of the university.The students also boycotted their examinations due to the increment in their tuition fees The indigeneship verification of fresh students admitted into the university for the 2011/2012 academic session, was said to have been postponed twice due to the warning strike by the members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU). Billed for October 18, the prospective students and their parents were said to have gathered at the MBA Hall, venue of the exercise for the screening, before the students, led by the Students' Union leaders stormed the venue at about 9:30 a.m with placards with various inscriptions such as 'No Verification, No Increment'. With the protest, the Screening Committee on the verification had no option than to stop the exercise as they werfe forced to put it on hold. A parent from Lagos Island, who spoke with Campus Compass on condition of anonymity, however supported the students' action, saying: 'We parents are in support of students protest because they are fighting for the interest of our children.'.After the two-hour protest, the Students' Union President pleaded with the students to go back to their classes since they had achieved their aim.But, the protest took another dimension on the third, when the students' boycotted their examinations in protest for what they described as an unjust increment of the fee, challenging the Lagos State Government, the proprietor of the 29-year-old university to reverse the increment with immediate effect. During the protest, the Students' Union President, supported by the immediate past President and other students gathered at the university main gate along Badagry Expressway chanting war songs, calling on Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola to save their future. But the students, who during the protest ensured that no school or government property was touched or destroyed, however disrupted vehicular movement on the high way for several hours.The students' anger was said to have been arose, when the university authorities in a bulletin warned the students to stay away from any protest, stating categorically that the increment was not for the returning students, but the freshers only. To the students, the bulletin was an act of betrayal and conspiracy by the authority and the government. The students, who however agreed to return to the campus was unable to see the Vice-Chancellor as main entrance to the Administrative Block was locked.While addressing the students, the union President insisting that the content of the bulletin would not in anyway assuage them from protesting the illegal increment, which is a divide and rule policy of the Lagos State Government.The students said they were not ready to go back to class until the government rescinds its decision on fee increment. According to him, many of their parents found it difficult to pay the current N25, 000 not to talk of N350,000 being proposed by the government.The students described the government's decision and action as unconstitutional, saying neither freshers nor returning students were ready to pay for infrastructures or facilities that were yet to be put in place since the government's claim for the increment is based on plans to provide facilities.
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