HOT NEWS FROM PORT HARCOURT

Academic activities have been paralised as  students of the University of Port Harcourt trooped out, protesting the alleged hike in the institution’s tuition fee and other levies.

Road barricaded by the protesting UNIPORT students

The protest started as early as 5.00 am, with the angry students barricading all access roads leading to the university, including the major East-West and the Choba-UNIPORT road.

“We pay the highest school fees in Nigeria compared to all other Federal Universities in this country.

“They (the university authorities) will still ask us to pay faculty dues, departmental levy, examination registration fees and many others.

“We are sick and tired of all these payments. They even went ahead to issue a deadline for these payments not considering that things are hard for our parents.

“We decided to embark on this protest today because 1st semester exams are supposed to start today and what we have done is to stop it from holding,” one of the protesting students said.

Meanwhile, a Deputy Registrar and spokesman of the institution, Dr Williams Wodi, remarked that the students’ protest was uncalled for and unpopular among the student population.

“What is going on is that less than two per cent of our students are protesting and are refusing to allow workers and other students to come into the campus to start their Exams or do their legitimate duties.

“We sensitised our students as far back as November 2015, that we are going to change the perception of University where students come school free and carry over all school fees from year one to the final year and they should pay what we gave as outstanding charges because we do charge school fees.

“We told them that all returning students are to pay N45,000.

“That has been communicated through the school website, circular and the school bulletins and others.

“When wanted to enforce the payment at the beginning of the session we saw that the compliance was very low the first deadline was 21 February 2016,we extended it to March 11,2016,we made it lecture free for all students to pay to pay.

“We recorded some mileages. Then we extended it to March 30,2016. We still had some students who have not paid so we opened our portal on April 5 and for them to pay we still had problems with a couple of them and reopened it on April 6 and closed it on midnight of April 7.

“You can see that from November last year to Feb. 12, March 11, March 30, April 5 and finally April 7 while 98 per cent of students complied.

“About two per cent of the students have not complied and they are the ones making heaven and earth meet,” the deputy registrar said.

On the penalty for not paying, Wodi said that the position of the Senate of the institution was that all those who are yet to pay by midnight of April 7, 2016, will automatically carry over the semester not deregistered.

Asked if the university senate would be ready to allow the defaulting students to write their examinations and pay later, Wodi said emphatically that they would not be allowed.

“The same Federal Government insisted, based on the negotiations between Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and other unions, that if lecturers invigilate for exams they need to be paid. Where will the institution have money to pay invigilators?

“Over the years parents and students have had the notion that students can pass through the institution without paying and and graduation they would pay.

“The decision of the institution is a recent development,” Wodi said.

He argued that Nigerian parents had been spending estimated N860 billion as fees for their children and wards in Ghanaian universities that could not compare with some state universities in Nigeria.

The Renaissance reports that the UNIPORT’s students protests is coming barely four days after similar protest by students of the University of Lagos led to the indefinite close of the institution, with pride itself as the “Univeristy of First Choice”.

kidnappers lure a lady they met on facebook




“On March 6 at about 2100hrs, four kidnappers who hailed from Obosi in Idemili Local Government, lured their victim (a young lady), out of Onitsha Sports Club, via Facebook to Oguta Road in Onitsha, where she was kidnapped at an uncompleted building.
“The victim was also kept for days until the ransom of N500, 000 was paid.
“The victim was stripped n***d and video recorded after robbing her of a Samsung Galaxy phone, blue tap phone and wrist watch all valued at N90,000,” Okechukwu said.
He also said that on Feb. 23, another four armed robbery suspects conspired and robbed one Mr Ikechukwu Ogeh of N3 million cash at gun-point, at the Amansea section of the Awka-Enugu expressway.
Okechukwu who said that all the suspects confessed to the crimes, noted that items recovered from them included, one locally made short gun with live cartridge and an axe.


 AJASIN UNIVERSITY CLOSES OVER STUDENT''S DEATH

 Authorities of Adekunle Ajasin University Akungba, Akoko, Ondo State have shut the institution indefinitely following a violent protest at the weekend over the death of a second-year student of the Department of Economics.

The late student, Ojo Afolabi, reportedly died  after being hit by a commercial vehicle along Owo-Ikare Expressway on Friday night.

A statement yesterday by the Acting Registrar, Sunday Ayeerun, said ongoing examinations had been suspended while students were to leave the campus immediately. It added that students would be informed of a new resumption date in due course.

Ayeerun noted that management had set up a panel on the incident with a view to forestalling future occurrence.