It can be recalled that UNILAG's management ordered the indefinite closure of the school earlier today, stating that students' protest border on a national situation which the management cannot address internally. Students of the institution had on Wednesday 7 April, 2016, embarked on a protest to register their displeasure over poor living conditions occasioned by inadequate power and water supply.
The students protested failing water and electricity supply. The Senate of the University of Lagos in a circular posted to various notice boards yesterday morning, gave students till 10am to vacate their halls of residence “in order to avoid further breakdown of law and order”.
President of the Student Union Government (SUG) of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Mohammed Olaniyan, has been reportedly arrested on Thursday by security operatives following the protest by students.
The school's management issued a directive that all students vacate the halls of residence before 10:00am today Friday. However, the students decided to disregard the directive with the student union locking the halls of residence, thus preventing the exit of any student. Following the expiration of the deadline, the hostel and school gates were locked with students still in the premises.
They clamored for the presence of Olaniyan whom they referred to as their 'school father', as they waited till 9:30pm on Thursday for Rahmon Ade Bello, vice chancellor of the university, to address them, but the address didn’t happen.
Vehicles of the Lagos state Rapid Response Squad were at the university premises but no other arrest was made. Olaniyan himself was released after a few hours as the opinion of some students of the university is that the management wants to push them to violence.
Meanwhile, following an order by the authorities of the school closing down the campus earlier today, students are now vacating the campus as the gate of the university has been taken over by heavily armed policemen, who are supervising the students' movement out of the campus.
The students of the University of Lagos, UNILAG, were seen vacating the school’s premises trekking to their destination as they decried ‘no fuel’, ‘no vehicle’.
Students were pictured crossing the canal at the back gate in order to leave the premises. Terribly unhygienic, not to mention risky.
The administration added that the school will reopen once fuel scarcity situation becomes normal in Nigeria.
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