For a number of hours, traffic was on stand still yesterday, along Mile 2 Badagry expressway as students of Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, AOCOED, Ijanikin, took to the streets to protest what they termed unlawful increment in their tuition fees as well as insensitivity of the school management to their welfare.
The students who barricaded both sides of the road also carried some placards chanting solidarity songs as they kicked off their protests in front of the school gate as early as 9am.
According to eye witnesses account, although both sides of the expressway were barricaded by the protesting students prompting the gridlock to last for about two hours, the exercise was a peaceful one until the Police arrived from nowhere to disperse the protesters with some canisters.
An eye witness, Otunba Adisa Osiefa, said the gridlock lasted between the hours of 10am and12pm as the heavy presence of policemen could not hinder the students in any way. Also, some LASTMA officials had a hectic time controlling the traffic. ‘’It was a peaceful demonstration; there were no shootings and nobody sustained injuries,’’ an eye witness said.
The students were said to have shut the school gate as they alleged that the management had increased the school fees twice within a spate of three years.
Also, the students were said to have drawn attention to the high level of infrastructure decay due to gross neglect, citing as an example, school toilets that have been out of use for six months, forcing many of them to defecate in unhygenic places.
According to sources, the management of the school first hiked the tuition costs in 2011 but reversed the decision following the intervention of the Students Union, but this year re-imposed the high fees prompting the students to take to the streets.
