Police Arrest LASU Students for ProtestingTuition Fee Increase

LASU  protest*.

LASG to release report on tuition on June 9By Gboyega Akinsanmi and Akinwale Akintunde About 10 students of Lagos State University (LASU) have been arrested and subsequently charged before a Magistrate Court in Ikeja for allegedly staging a protest, which caused protracted traffic congestion on Tuesday.

The President of the LASU Students Union Government, Mr. Nurudeen Yusuf, confirmed their arrest yesterday, saying security operatives of the Lagos State Police Command apprehended the students after the peaceful protest.The arrested students include Olamide Bolarinwa, 23; Oludare Olayinka, 18; Victoria Oni, 18; Timilehin Fatukasi, 19; Babatunde Bolarinwa, 24; Taiwo Ajayi, 24; Olatimihan Taiwo, 20, and Segun Akani, 27.The accused were charged with a one-count charge for breach of public peace.

The state’s police spokesperson, Ms. Ngozi Braide, said the accused committed the offence at 5:45p.m. on June 3, at Ladipo Bus Stop, Oshodi Road, Lagos.

The prosecutor, Mr. Samson Ekikere, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, told the court that the accusedconducted themselves in a manner likely to cause a breach of public peace by hijacking a LAGBUS bus, No P004, with registration No. SMK 719 XK, property of the Lagos State Government.Ekikere said the students, who were protesting the hike in school fees, caused discomfort to motorists plying the route. He said the offence contravened the provisions of Section 166 (d) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.He said that the students, who were protesting a hike in their school fees, caused discomfort to motorists plying the route.

The prosecutor said the offence contravened the provisions of Section 166 (d) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

If convicted, they are each liable to three months imprisonment.However, the accused all pleaded not guilty to the charge preferred against them.The Chief Magistrate, Mrs Eniola Fabamwo, admitted them to bail in the sum of N10, 000 each, with one responsible surety.

She said  the surety must be a blood relative of the accused.Fabamwo adjourned the case until Aug. 6, for mention.

However, the Lagos State Government yesterday disclosed the plan to release its on the students’ tuition on June 9, noting that a committee it set up to look into the LASU issue had completed its task.

The government also blamed fifth columnists for the last protest, which the students staged on Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, thereby causing protracted traffic gridlocks from Oshodi to Anifowose in Ikeja.

The state’s Commissioner for Transportation, Mr. Kayode Opeifa, disclosed this at a news conference he addressed at the state secretariat, Alausa along with his information & strategy counterpart, Mr. Aderemi Ibirogba and the state’s Solicitor-General, Mr. Lawal Pedro (SAN).

At the conference, Opeifa said the committee “will formally release its report to the State Executive Council till June 9. A lot of issues that needed interrogation havealready been interrogated and concluded.“The students had made their submission, proposing N46,000. The lecturers had made their presentation in which they asked the state government to reduce the tuition to N50, 000. The dialogue is on. The discussion is concluded. And the next thing is action,” the commissioner explained.Opeifa, who is also a member of the committee set up tolook into the intractable crisis undermining the institution, said certain people were hiding under the crises to foment  trouble in the state .

He said the state government had reached an agreement with the stakeholders on the way out of the lingering crisis, wondering why the crises continued to escalate despite assurances that it would do something on it.“

We have a responsibility to sit down and take decisionsin the interest of the students and their parents, the institution and state government. We have also been meeting with other people where we need clarifications.”

He explained that Governor Babatunde Fashola (SAN) met the students twice and asked the students to give their position as to what they wanted the government to do, they send in their reports and made their own assumption. That report was submitted on a day before people protested on May Day.

According to him, the governor has passed their request to a committee to look at and the committee. We have met with the students. We have met with the academic staff and the university management. In the meeting, the students made a very brilliant and intelligent presentation.

Caption: Doyin Okupe
Borno Govt: Okupe’s Remarks Designed to Manipulate C’ttee’s Report on Chibok

Crusoe Osagie The Borno State Government has said the most recent conspiracy theory propounded by Dr. Doyin Okupe which is coming just when the Presidential Fact-finding Committee on Abducted Schoolgirls in Chibok is rounding off its assignment and preparing it’s report, was a clever design aimed at manipulating the committee’s report given the feelers that facts on ground do not favour the presidency’s desperate plot toname a scapegoat.The government spoke in reaction to comments by the presidency spokeman Okupe, at a BBC, discussion programme, hard-talk, aired on Tuesday.Okupe had alleged that only God, Governor Shettima, of Borno State Borno’s commissioner for education and principal of the affected school know the truth of what happened in Chibok, saying all of them gave different accounts of what happened on April 14, when over 200 schoolgirls were abducted by Boko Haram members.

The state government, in a statement said: One must suspect and indeed question Okupe’s rather calculated remarks at a time the fact-finding committee on Chibok abduction set up by the presidency which Okupe works for is rounding off its assignment.

It noted that after speaking with virtually all relevant stakeholders, with the highest point being visits and interactive sessions with officials of the state government as well as parents, school authority and students of the affected school,  the committee, which isprobably writing it’s report by now, may be prepared to enlighten the public.

It however noted that given the facts already in public domain, it is clear that the likes of Okupe being jittery that the findings are unlikely to be what they had wickedly presumed, are saying things that will manipulate and mislead members of the presidential committee.“

Okupe knows very well that on the night the president met with the governor, the commissioner of education and the principal, the commissioner of police (CP) and the divisional police officer (DPO) of Chibok were also there in connection with the fact-finding by the president. So, why did Okupe deliberately keep out the police in his innuendos?“He was being clever by half. He kept out the police because he must have seen the letter written by the state government to the police prior to the attack, he also knows what the police DPO told the president the night they met.“

Okupe also knows that exonerating the police is keeping out the Presidency from his innuendos. For God’s sake the president set up a high powered fact-finding committee, the committee must have by now, found the facts, why wouldn’t the presidency trust its own committee and allow it present its findings?” the state  government queried.

It contended that the purpose of Okupe saying all the things he said was to create yet another confusion just when the committee is rounding up and very likely, writing its report.“

Could it be that Okupe has got the impression from facts already in public domain, that the conspiracy theories have refused to fly? Perhaps, he has all the feelers that facts on ground do not favour the desperate plot to pronounce a major victim, guilty as speculated because the very first term of reference issued by the Presidency which says the committee should find out why the Government Secondary School Chibok was opened when others were closed in the state has already been contradicted by the same WAEC’s letter that Okupe relied upon, albeit blindly, because the letter shows that not only the school in Chibok was open but indeed, Chibok was just one out of six examination centres in different parts of the state including areas not far from Chibok that were opened to students,” the state queried.

It said it is to be expected that someone like Okupe probably regreted the establishment of that committee and hence the last minute desperation to cause confusion.  “Not only Okupe appears to be involved in the last minute attempt to discredit the state. The Minister of Information  Labaran Maku, was also all overthe media saying all kinds of falsehoods all in a combined effort to manipulate the fact-finding report.

“It should be recalled that after that unfortunate attack and abduction, Okupe and his likes had come up with different conspiracy theories and all the theories have failed and have been confined to the dustbin where they belong. First, they said there was no abduction. When they were proved wrong, they said the state government planned it, when they were proved wrong again, they said the state government was specifically advised by WAEC and the supervising Minister of Education via twoseparate letters not to conduct examinations in Chibok, however the state government brought out the two letters and shared with the Nigerian public,  again the documents have disputed the claims.