By Safiu Kehinde
After the management of the Lagos State Polytechnic confirmed the increment of the school fees, aggrieved students have issued a 24-hour ultimatum to the Students Union Government (SUG) to revisit the decision.
Expressing their displeasure, the students, during a congress held at the SUG building on Tuesday, were blatantly against the increment as they called for the scrap of the decision. They condemned the management’s inability to notify the students and carry the SUG along before deciding to increase the school fees. This, they labelled as unjust and undemocratic.
In what was described as the outcome of the Union’s first meeting with the management over the situation, the Students Representative Council Speaker, Rt. Hon. Asekun Elijah, revealed that the school management has told them to relay their decision to the students and give a feedback to the Management in return. He then urged the students not to engage in any form of protest as the situation is still under the first phase of the 3Cs of Aluta which is consultation.
“If we stage a protest today, it might not necessarily affects the School Management. Our 3Cs of Aluta, we have consultation, consolidation, and confrontation. Before we go into consolidation and confrontation, we have to exhaust our consultation.
At this point, we are still at the point of consultation. We are students, we are representatives of your class as honorables, as an indigenous association, departmental presidents, facility presidents, or representatives. I believe we are all gathered here today. We want to make a dialogue with you all,” the Speaker said.
Also displeased with the management’s failure to carry the Union along from the onset, Asekun mentioned that the Union was not part of the decision before it was made. He, however, commended the open-door negotiation put forward by the management, who, according to the Speaker, gave “thousands of reasons” for the school fees increment.
“When we heard about the increment, we took it as fallacy- something that is never due because we were not part of the decision. Now we inquired to meet the management which the door was opened for us. They gave us thousands of reasons reasonable enough,” he added.
In an effort to hear from the aggrieved students, the Speaker gave room for questions and reactions with the SUG President, Comrade Balogun Aderemi, as demanded by the students.
While some students called out the Union for poor representation of their interest, others decried the shocking increment of school fees by the management. According to one of the students, the increment, if at all necessary, ought to be gradual and not in such alarming rate.
“Increment is meant to be a gradual process and not 100 per cent increase. You have to go from zero to one, 1 to 1.5, 1.5 to 3. That is how it is meant to be. So go from 2700 Naira for Third-party to 3000 Naira. Don’t go to 12,500 Naira for us. It is too much!” he said.
Another student condemned the Union for begging the management over the increment rather than representing the students’ interest.
“You guys (the SUG) are just having meeting, telling the Rector: ‘Sir please help us to change the school fees back to normal’. We didn’t elect you to beg. We didn’t elect you to fight. We elected you to represent us.” the visibly angry student said.
Meanwhile, majority of the students called for a reversal of the school fees as shouts of “No Increment!” rented the air.
2 Comments