Lagos—Students of the Lagos State University, LASU, yesterday, shut down vehicular and commercial activities along the Lagos-Badagry expressway, to protest the indefinite postponement of the institution’s 2014/2015 first semester examination, earlier scheduled to commence on July 6.
The students who were aggrieved that their examination was shifted indefinitely three days to its commencement, barricaded the ever-busy highway, causing a hectic traffic logjam from the LASU gate to Alaba Suru Bus-stop.
The situation, Vanguard gathered held motorists and other road users for over six hours, forcing commuters to trek long distances to their business and work places.
Speaking to Vanguard, the Students’ Union Government, SUG, spokesperson, Mr. Adebanjo Fatai, expressed disgust at the silence of the Visitor to the university, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode over the unending crises rocking the state-owned university.
Fatai, who said the silence absolutely negates one of the major electoral promises made to them by the governor, urged him to urgently pass an order to resolve the impasse leading to the disruption the school’s academic calendar.
why we postponed exams —LASU management
However, in an official bulletin dated June 3, the university management said it shifted the exams until further notice, as a result of the inconclusive registration exercise by students, which has affected the production of examination dockets, and the inability of the university Senate to meet in order to ratify the amended academic calendar which was approved on its behalf by the Vice Chancellor and Chairman of Senate.
The management in the bulletin stated that between Saturday, June 27 and Thursday, July 2, 2015, of the school’s total population of 11, 333, just 7, 982 students have paid their tuition fees which was reversed to as low as N25, 000 on August 7, 2014 by the last administration.
Of this number that have paid, it said 7, 774 students have registered, while 208 students were yet to register for reasons best known to them, adding that 3, 351 students are yet to pay their tuition fees and are not yet registered and may not sit for the examination should it commence as scheduled.
There has been continued face-off between the institution’s Vice Chancellor, Prof. John Obafunwa and its staff unions – the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU and Non-Academic Staff Union, NASU, over issues bordering on the running of the university.