Tuition Fees Hike: Students, Police, Schools Speak As Severe Clash Occurs In Ondo

Students in Ondo state yesterday clashed with some armed policemen from the Ondo State Police command while trying to protest the hike in their tuition fees.

The students who began their protest on Tuesday, shut down the state capital yesterday, disrupted commercial activities and stopped vehicular movement for hours.

The students who belonged to Adekunle Ajasin University Akungba Akoko, AAUA, and Ondo State University of Science and Technology, OSUSTECH, Okitipupa started their protest as early as 7:30am yesterday.

They are protesting that their school fees be reduced.

They vowed that until Governor Rotimi Akeredolu caves in to quell the situation by reducing the hike in tuition fees, they would not stop the protest.

As this went on, police detectives were invited to stop the protest, who in the process fired tear gas while the students, in turn, hurled stones at the policemen.

After a while, the students absconded, then the police cleared the barricaded roads for vehicles to go.

Spokesman of the Police Command, Mr. Femi Joseph while reacting to the incidence said the police made the move when the students became really violent.

He explained that some of them smashed windscreens of vehicles and also damaged other valuables.

Joseph said: “Despite all these, they took to the streets and we have been managing the situation for days until they became violent and started destroying valuables.

“They went wild and caused a lot of damages. They attacked everything in sight including motorists and our men in uniform

“We cannot sit down and allow things to degenerate into an orgy of violence. So, we decided to disperse them.”

However, in a swift response, the students union president of AAUA, Samuel Adesomoju denied all allegations by the police.

He said the police only used their vendetta power to attack innocent students who were expressing their constitutional right to protest injustice by the government voted into power by the people of the state.

Meanwhile, the Management of Adekunle Ajasin University through its acting Registrar, Opeoluwa Akinfemiwa has denied hiking the school fees saying “There is no new increase of school fees in AAUA, the current school fees in AAUA ranges between N80,000 and N150,000 and the students are allowed to pay twice that is between N40,000 and N75,000 per semester.”