One student killed in UNIPORT protest

A student of the Universi­ty of Port Harcourt (UNI­PORT) in Rivers State was feared killed on Monday during a protest against the institution’s al­leged non-compliance with the new school fees policy. The students, who shut down academic activities in the school, started their protest at about 4:30am. 

The Authority gathered that the victim, who was identi­fied as Mr Peter Ofurun, a student of Management Science, was killed by a stray bullet from the police who were trying to scare them from con­tinuing with the demonstration. 

Another student, whose name was yet to be known as at the time of filing this report, was also reported­ly hit by a stray bullet and was hur­riedly taken to an undisclosed hos­pital for immediate treatment. 

It was gathered that the protest­ing students disrupted vehicular and human traffic on the East-West road chanting that they would not accept the school’s new policy of ‘no fees no examina-tion’. 

The university authority had re­cently adopted a new policy which bars any student unable to pay fees from sitting for examination. Also a student who did not write the cur­rent examination is allegedly com­pelled by the policy to repeat the current level. 

But the students, who protested on Monday, described such poli­cy as a form of victimisation of the student of the institution. The stu­dents maintained that based on the nature of the nation’s economy, the management should not be strict on the policy. 

The students who claimed that they have, on several occasions, pleaded with the university man-agement to extend the deadline for the payment for the second se­mester added that they would pre­fer to be shut down completely un­less the management accepts their own stand. 

A student, Andrew Osose, who spoke with The Authority said: “The management of the school did not consider the real life situation before trying to enact the academ­ic policy. 

“They said if you do not pay the school charges, you cannot write exams and we the students plead­ed with the management that they should allow us write the exam and that they should open registration till one week to the second semester because all fingers are not equal but the school management paid deaf ears to our pleas. 

The state Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Ahmad Muhammad, who spoke with The Authority on the death of the student, however, said it was a mere allega­tion. 

Source:The Authority