Campus News

LASU Mayhem - the Morning After

STUDENTS OF THE LAGOS STATE UNIVERSITY (LASU) WENT WILD RECENTLY AS A RESULT OF THE SCHOOL's MANAGEMENT DECISION TO CLOSE ITS COURSE REGISTRATION PORTAL. AS A RESULT OF THIS ACTION, ABOUT 1,292 STUDENTS WERE DENIED ACCESS TO COMPLETE their REGISTRATION, WHICH SUGGESTted THAT THEY WOULD NOT SIT FOR their SECOND SEMESTER EXAMINATION. BUT INVESTIGATIONs HAve shown THAT THE recent CRISIS was AN OFFSHOOT OF THE TUITION REGIME THE INSTITUTION INTRODUCED ABOUT TWO YEARS AGO.


FRANCIS O'LERI'S WRITES


Since its creation more than three decades ago, the Lagos State University (LASU), has been moving from one crisis to the other. But the last four years has, particularly, been most challenging in the history of the institution established by the administration of the state's first civilian governor, Alhaji Lateef Jakande. Primarily, the reason for its establishment was to make tertiary education more accessible to the indigenes of the state.


However, the recent crisis actually, marked the climax of LASU's intractable challenges. In what they described as a mass action against the institution's insensitivity to their plight, students took to the streets just some days to the takeoff of their second semester examination. Unlike their previous mass action, the protesting students became violent, thus leading to brutal attacks on journalists and critical infrastructure.


The students also went after the Vice Chancellor, Prof. John Obafunwa and other top management staff. Although they all escaped through the back doors and with assistance of security personnel, the students violently came down on the administrative block, breaking into the complex and damaging an official car of the VC and another belonging to an official of the institution.


The protest was so violent that the regular security personnel on campus could not effectively bring it under control. But the deployment of the anti-riot police and Rapid Response Squad (RRS), eventually, restored order. Consequently, the VC shut the institution indefinitely just one month after the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) suspended a six-month old national strike. For LASU, it was a double tragedy.


The Root Cause... The cost of the protest, which erupted on January 23 on the institution's main campus, was indeed huge. Though no life was lost, but it crippled social and economic activities around the campus, as properties worth millions of naira were damaged and the school calendar further disrupted.