Following the protest by students of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka over alleged tuition fee increment, the Vice Chancellor of the institution, Professor Charles Esimone has assured of immediate action to resolve the matter.
Professor Esimone, who addressed thousands of protesting students in front of the University’s library noted that Management of the institution has taken note of their agitations and promised that the Governing Council will look into them with immediate effect.
The Vice Chancellor further stated that the institution has set up a Committee to address the issue and pleaded with the students to give the Committee twenty-four hours to come up with a resolution that will be favourable to all the students.
Professor Esimone who noted that the welfare of the students is the top priority of the University’s Management requested the students to send representatives that will be part of the Committee’s deliberations.
Some representatives of the students, including Comrades Chuks Egebe and Joseph Okafor, while registering students’ grievances, pleaded with them to listen to the school authority and expressed hope that normalcy will return to the school after twenty-four hours.
It was gathered that the protest, which began on Monday, was due to hike in school fee from twenty-six thousand three hundred naira to fifty-five thousand six hundred naira for the old students, while new ones are meant to pay one hundred and two thousand naira as against fifty-two thousand naira paid in 2018.
The students also complained of increment in acceptance fee, faculty dues among others.
Correspondent Valentine Mbadugha reports that the protest, which has so far been peaceful, saw thousands of the students move around the University premises displaying banners and placards with inscriptions such as “Reduce School Fees”, “Say No to School Fees Hike”, School Fees No Be Crypto”, “We Be Students, No Be Client”, among others.
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