by Usman Alabi
Students of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho will on Monday stage a mass protest against the indefinite closure of the school, said the Acting Secretary General , Alliance of Nigerian Students against Neo-Liberal Attacks, Juwon Sanyaolu.
According to him, the protest which would take place in Oyo and Osun States, was necessary to end the workers’strike which had lasted for seven months, he warned the governments of both states against increasing tuition fee.
The statement was made available to punch newspaper.
“The January 9 mass action is for the outright rejection of the imminent fee hike in LAUTECH and to call for adequate funding of the university, immediate reopening of the campus and unconditional reinstatement of the Students Union of the school.
“The declaration of the date as a day of mass action against the aforementioned was a product of the congress of LAUTECH students which premised its conclusion of an imperative mass action on the need to mobilize Nigerian students, youths and activists against further attacks that would soon befall our entire tertiary institutions across the country.
“The fact is that fees hike has never solved the challenges of underfunding in LAUTECH or any other tertiary institution. Rather, it has always deprived students from poor backgrounds access to affordable education. We, therefore, maintain that it should under no circumstance be substituted for adequate funding of education,” the statement read.
He called on stakeholders in the education sector to mediate on the matter. Sanyaolu said students should not be made to bear the brunt of inadequate funding.