Police Arrest 10 as OOU Students Protest

Police Arrest 10 as OOU Students Protest

Students of Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye in Ogun State, took to the streets Monday to protest the decision of the institution not to allow non-registered students to participate in the harmattan examinations.

The protest, however, turned into confusion as the police fired tear gas to disperse the protesting students, while the Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of Operations, Mr. Mohammed Abdulkadri, was appealing to the students.

Speaking on the development, Abdulkadri said 10 suspected rioters were arrested and two buses seized from the students.

While the Ijebu Area Police Commander, Usman Alabi, urged the students to shelve the protest with a view to allowing human and vehicular movements in and outside the main campus, the students, on their part, ordered the institution's management to rescind its decision.

But the institution's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Saburi Adesanya, said the regularisation was in line with a directive from the National Universities Commission (NUC), requesting all universities to provide a comprehensive students' audit within the next six weeks.

He said the only way to achieve the NUC directive was to compile the list of bona-fide students, who had duly registered after the payment of school fees.

According to him, the protesting students were those who failed to meet the May 17 deadline before the commencement of the 500 level Law students' examination.

"The deadline has before now been shifted for more than three times to allow them complete their registration which some of them refuse to do," he said.

Reacting to the development, Vice-President of the Student Union Government (SUG), Mrs. Ajayi Kikelomo Oyindamola, said they had been on the struggle with the institution for an extension of the deadline for the past three months.

She explained that the students acknowledged the steps taken by the institution over the regularisation of the issue, but added that the closure of the institution had made things difficult.

Oyindamola added that the SUG even pleaded on behalf of the affected students who have not paid their school fees for 2010/2011, 2011/2012,and 2012/2013 academic session for more extension due to the present economic situation of the country, which did not go well with the management.

She also confirmed that some of the students had spent four to six years in the institution as a result of their inability to pay their tuition fees, adding that no students was shot by the police.

The school authority on Sunday through a statement from the state government directed all bona-fide students of the institution to regularise their studentship with immediate effect.