The President of the Students Union Government of the University of Jos, Comrade Sidney Daman, has accused the Management of adopting a policy that would drag the institution into a long drawn dispute.
This followed the decision of the school to increase the school fees from N27,400 to N45,000.
The Students Union Government on Friday reacted negatively to what it termed the unilateral adoption of an astronomical increase of school fees by the university authority, headed by the Vice Chancellor, Sabastine Maimeko.
Addressing newsmen, Daman expressed dismay with the university authority, stressing that the SUG was still seeing to the challenges relating to the inability of some students to pay off their last academic session’s fees, just to be greeted with the increase.
According to Daman: “It is not long ago that the students of the University of Jos encountered payment problems in the 2015/2016 academic session.
“While the repayment saga still lingers and fresh in minds, the issue of increment of school charges became a gruesome reality on the 16th of March, 2017 at the multipurpose auditorium.”
According to Damian, the leadership of the SUG is committed to a dialogue process of seeing that the above mentioned issues come to a reasonable conclusion.
He said: “We have, over time, demonstrated fine spirit of our new found ideal and we wish to call on ASUU, SSANU, NASU and all other responsible unions to as a matter of solidarity join the negotiation process of the students to ensure a peaceful and fair negotiation.”
Damian called on parents, guardians and other stakeholders to wake up and stand with their children on the issue, adding: “We encourage that parents who are key players join the struggle for the sake of posterity.”
He said though as students leaders they were curious to be part of the parents, management and stakeholders meeting where the decision to increase the school fees took place, the vice chancellor barred them from contributing to the proceeding, even as he added that the attendance of the parents was insignificant.
He added that most of the parents present were teaching and non teaching, that is staff working in the university.
Damian said the increase was unacceptable, adding: “The Nigerian students believe that the government of CHANGE that was accompanied by the promise of free education and better life for the Nigerian masses would not turn out to redirect federal institutions to increase their fees as claimed by the VC’s excuse in the fee increase.”
He appealed to parents to remain calm until the matter is addressed.
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