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Students protest plans by Northern varsities to hike fees

The students’ wing of the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG-SW) has condemned plans by tertiary institutions in the Northern part of the country to increase…

The students’ wing of the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG-SW) has condemned plans by tertiary institutions in the Northern part of the country to increase tuition fees as well as other levies.

The national coordinator of the group, Jamilu Aliyu, who raised the issues during a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday, said that institutions like Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria had increased their tuition by over 100 percent, while Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai in Niger State and some others recorded an over 60 percent increase.

While giving the government a three weeks ultimatum to return to status quo of risk the organisation “speaking to it in the language it understands”, it warned that except measures are put in place to check the fee hike, more girls would drop out of school.

Aliyu said, “The CNG-SW is disturbed by reports from its state chapters of an attempt by the federal and state governments to commercialize education to make it the exclusive preserve of treasury looters at the expense of children of millions of less-privileged Nigerians.

“If the fee hike is not reviewed downward, it may force many students to drop out of school and increase social vices, as students may be compelled to survive by all means. We, therefore, urge the government at all levels to revert to the old fee to enable students from poor and marginalized families to access tertiary education and break the chain of poverty.

“While we appeal to the students to be law abiding and not to the take law into their own hands in the quest to seek reversal of the fee increase, we equally pray that the government will listen to the cries of innocent Nigerian students within three weeks to avoid speaking in a language that the government understands best. All state coordinators should be on alert for further directives from the national secretariat.

“There are institutions such as ATBU Bauchi in the North-East, ABU Zaria in the North-West all with over 100 per cent increase and IBB University in the North-Central with over 60 per cent Increase.

“The CNG Students’ Wing, hereby condemns, in the strongest terms, the hike in tuition fees as an untimely, immoral, unconscionable, height of insensitivity and unacceptable attempt to deny the children of the poor access to affordable education, entrench class dichotomy and widen the gap between the rich and the poor,” he said.

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