Nine students of the University of Lagos, including student activists Femi Adeyeye and Philip Olatinwo, who were arrested by the police, have been released from the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Panti, Lagos State.
The students were arrested in the early hours of Wednesday after police officers fired tear gas canisters to disperse student protesters during a protest against the university’s management’s increment of school fees.
According to Adeyeye, who is also one of the leaders of the Student Solidarity Group Against Fee Hike, the police said they were apprehended for unlawful assembly and conduct likely to cause a breach of peace.
However, the students had yet to begin demonstrations and had only convened at the university’s junction when the police launched an attack on them.
Unilag students demanding the release of their colleagues at the protest
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By the time they reconvened, a large number of police officers had formed a barricade in front of the school’s gate, preventing them from gaining entry into the school.
Police officers barricading UNILAG’s front gate
“We were just at the junction. We had not even started protests when they fired teargas and shot at us,” one of the students said, before yelling loudly at the officers, asking why they were nowhere to be found when students were being kidnapped.
FIJ found that the intervention of security agencies in the protests was not without history.
Two weeks ago, the students under the Student Solidarity Group Against Fee Hike and the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) made public their intentions to demonstrate against their hiked fees after failed negotiations with the school’s management on August 2.
Subsequently, the Department of State Services (DSS) issued a warning to the students to desist from protesting, stating that they had identified and were monitoring the proponents of the protest.
“Intelligence reports have indicated that the plotters include certain politicians who are desperately mobilising unsuspecting student leaders, ethnic-based associations, youth, and disgruntled groups for the planned action.
“Meanwhile, the Service has identified the ring leaders of the plot as well as sustained monitoring around them in order to deter them from plunging the country into anarchy,” Peter Afunaya, the public relations officer of the DSS, wrote in a statement on Monday.
Prior to the DSS’ warning, the school’s management had alleged that the protest was being planned by people who did not mean well for the institution and dissuaded students from engaging in it.
“The management of the University of Lagos notes with concern the call for protest on Wednesday, September 6, 2023, over the review of obligatory charges by the university being planned by those who do not mean well for the University of Lagos,” the school’s Student Affairs Division wrote in a statement.
“We want to reiterate that the university is not against lawful and peaceful protests by students or any other law-abiding citizens or group of people.
“However, the management of the University of Lagos will not be deterred to take the necessary legitimate steps to protect the lives and property of the institution by those masquerading as defenders of students’ rights and interests in a bid to cause civil unrest.”
In a rebuttal statement, however, the Student Solidarity Group Against Fee Hike told the school’s management to quit insulting students and asserted that the protests would hold as planned.
“Stop insulting us. 62,215 students are not masquerades. Instead of panicking, just revert fees. September 6, a peaceful protest against criminal fee hike will hold on campus,” the headline read in all caps.
The students protested the management’s decision to describe their expression of displeasure with an unfavourable policy as ‘masquerading’ to disrupt the peace in the institution.
According to them, the vice chancellor, Folasade Ogunsola, promised to take their recommendations of reverting the increased fees to the previous N19,000 and immediately instituted a joint board comprising of the student representatives, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), NANS, and other relevant stakeholders to review the school’s finances to ascertain if it was necessary for management to increase the fees and to what extent the increment should be.
It was as a result of this previous communication with the management that the student group wrote that they considered the school’s profiling of their interests unfaithful.
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On July 21, the University of Lagos, announced the increment of school fees for students from the previous N19,000 to N100,750 for students not taking lab/studio courses, N140,250 for courses with lab/studio and N190,250 for medical students.
The increase, according to the university’s management was as a result of economic realities and the need for the school to meet its obligations to its students, staff and municipal service providers among others.
Students, however, are lamenting the hike, and are calling for a reversal to the previous N19,000.
They have given the university’s management 48 hours to yield to their demands or prepare for an even bigger protest.
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