Scores of angry students of the Kwara State University (KWASU), Malete staged a demonstration earlier in the week to protest the alleged clampdown on off-campus accommodation policy. The students, who came out in scores, chanted solidarity songs at the school’s entrance gate to say they should be allowed to stay off-campus and not in the school hostel.
It was gathered that the school management had devised a means to discourage off-campus stay by students with an increase in exemption fee for those who had to stay outside the school.
The students, who were not pleased with the directive, came out to protest the alleged increment in exemption fee on Monday, telling the school authorities to rescind the decision. It was gathered that the students, particularly those staying off-campus were particularly aggrieved because there was no basis for paying the accommodation fee since the school authorities didn’t provide any for them.
One of the students who craved anonymity in an interview with Vanguard said, “I have never seen this kind of wickedness anywhere in my life, this is more than daylight robbery. We are staying in strictly private hostels, far outside the school premises. “We pay to our landlords who also maintain those hostels, now tell me, what accommodation money should the school collect from us?
This is ridiculous and highly unacceptable, it sounds silly too, and the school authorities should look for decent ways to make money. “And it’s so sad that they are targeting our examinations, which will start a few days away so that they can force us to pay, God will judge whoever that is behind this evil plot, and I want to seriously appeal to Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq to intervene before this wicked decision rubbish his administration.”
But Spokesperson of the University, Razaq Sanni speaking with journalists, said that the school has only decided to stand strictly by what the policy in accommodation says, “Because we discovered that students don’t want to stay in school hostel again and only want to just pay exemption fee and not stay in the hostel”. Mr Sanni, who debunked the report that the school was closed because of the protest, said that the students’ protest was prevented from getting out of hand on time.
