OAU students protest fee hike, block Abuja highway

Students of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, have blocked the Ife-Abuja highway to protest against the new fee regime in the institution.

The placard-carrying protesters chanted anti-Peoples Democratic Party’s songs, threatening to disrupt the coming governorship election in Osun State if the fee was not reduced.


Passengers on the federal highway were stranded as the students also blocked all exit and entry routes linking Osun State to other states in the country.

The management of OAU at its last Senate meeting, increased the fee of newly admitted students into Humanities/Social Sciences by 322 per cent; Clinical Sciences and Pharmacy by 267 per cent, and and increase of 253 per cent for those admitted into Sciences.

With the increment, new students into the federal university will pay between N92, 400 and N104, 000, including acceptance fee as against N37,150 and N44, 150 previously paid by old students.

According to the protesters, they have negotiated with the school management to reduce the fee but to know avail.

One of them, identified as Isaac, said, ” We are trying our possible best to avoid confrontation, but since consultation and consolidation have failed, the whole Nigeria must hear us again as we did about three years ago. We want peace but we are not scared of crisis. We will not allow the legacy of our founding fathers to die.”

It was gathered that the school management agreed to reduce N17,000 from the new charges but the students claimed it was too “insignificant”.

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