Reverse fee hike or face mass action, NANS tells varsities

The National Association of Nigerian Students has said it will storm tertiary institutions that proceed to implement fee hikes across their campuses.

NANS executives while addressing a press conference at the International Press Centre, Ikeja, Lagos on Friday, warned that university management needed to obey the directive of President Bola Tinubu to halt fee hikes on their campuses.

“We want to seize this moment to warn that failure to comply with the directive of the Federal Government on the matter of fee increment will leave us with no choice but to evoke a nationwide confrontation.

“We will not only take our protests to the streets, but we will also bring them to your respective university gates,” the NANS National Public Relations Officer, Giwa Temitope, said in a statement.

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On July 31, 2023, President Tinubu directed the authorities in all federal institutions of higher learning to avoid arbitrary increases in sundry fees payable and where possible defer further increases so that parents and students would not face too much difficulty.

On July 21, 2023, the management of the University of Lagos announced an increment in the tuition fees of the undergraduate students of the institution, citing “prevailing economic realities.”

The management increased the fees from N19,000 to N190,250 for students studying medicine while for courses that require laboratory and studio, the students were to pay N140,250.

NANS however noted that on Wednesday, August 2, 2023, it met with the authorities of UNILAG “and asked them to suspend the recently announced fee increment. And we want to commend the fact that the Vice Chancellor did promise that our demands would be carefully considered.”

The student body said similar meetings were being held with the management of other tertiary institutions including Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, the University of Benin, and the University of Ibadan.

“As the umbrella body of the students’ movement, we have swung into action to arrest this inglorious trend of fee hikes, and our interventions which included writing to the Presidency to demand a total halt in the wave of fee hikes had been met with a favourable response.

“As of this moment, the FG has instructed that all tertiary institutions should immediately shelve any plan to increase fees. It was in response to the letter we wrote the Presidency.

“However, we are aware of defiant elements amongst many university authorities. It is the reason that we also took the liberty to write to tertiary institutions that have increased fees,” Giwa added.

The NANS spokesperson said while the association was aware that universities were poorly funded, he insisted that it was the responsibility of the government to fund education, and not poor parents who were already finding it difficult to feed.

The student body urged students’ union presidents, and all organs of NANS to start mobilising members for a total showdown “in the event that any tertiary institution decides to dare our resolve to fight for our right to public education.”