Prof. Vincent Ado Tenebe, Vice Chancellor, National Open University of Nigeria
The lingering crisis between students and management of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) over the lack of students association, lack of course materials adequately paid for, none admission of NOUN law graduates into the Nigerian law school,none mobilization for NYSC and other issues has reached its climax this week, as Students of the the institution call for the immediate sack of the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Ado Tenebe and other members of the management.
The students also announced that, they shall immediately proceed, after this release, to submit a comprehensive petition,detailing all allegations against the management to the EFCC, ICPC and other relevant agencies for onward prosecution.
The Congress of Noun Students, an unofficial student association in a press release dated tuesday in Lagos, 10 of November 2015, signed on behave of the students by 6 principals of the association led by Abdulrazaq O Hamzat (President), Iyinkaye Alameen (Gen.Secretary), Elias Ozikpu (PRO), Jonathan Okoli (Study Centre rep Coordinator), Ajala Maruf (Organizing Sec) and Afolabi Oluwaseyi (Social Director) said Vice Chancellor, Prof Ado Tenebe and his team Must Go for the University to have an headway.
According to the students, the National Open University of Nigeria, an institution established to provide flexible,accessible and affordable education to Nigerians has now been turned to a money draining institution, where certain cliques of academia extort helpless students,whose only crime is their quest for University education.
‘’The University, which is now a den for endemic corruption has through all machinations,prevented students from having a formal student association as guaranteed by the Nigerian constitution,fearing that students association shall challenge corrupt practices taking place at the institution.’’ the group said.
The students explained that, Congress of Noun Students (CONS), an unofficial group for Noun students across the federation had severally,but unsuccesfully sort to understand why those irregularities continue to happen, but the more we look, the greater corrupt intent we perceived in affairs of the institution, but rather than respond to legitimate questions being asked by the students in our numerous correspondence, our management said it owe no student any explanation, neither is it ready to stop violating students rights.
‘’As a result of students insistence over the numerous issues, the management felt threatened and sort to silence us by all means’’.
‘’On 9th of September 2015, leaders of the Congress of Noun Students honoured an invitation by the Nigerian Police at Ikeja police command, over a petition submitted by the management of our institution.’’
‘’In the said petition, the management had falsely claimed that, we threatened the life of the Vice Chancellor, planned to vandalize government properties and incite violence against the institution.’’
‘’The aim of the baseless petition was to criminalize leaders of the student Congress,simply because we asked the University authorities to respect the Nigerian constitution, by granting students rights of freedom of association as contained in section 40 of the 1999 Constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria and to desist from what we adjudged to be extortion without justification.’’
‘’The police, upon seeing such a petition swing into action with all seriouseness. They invited us for a chat
at the police command, and after which they also invited us together with the representative of the University to meet face to face.’’‘’At the second meeting which took place on 10th September 2015, It was agreed that, there was no threat to the life of our Vice Chancellor. It was also agreed that, there was no plan to vandalize government properties or incite students into violence. The resolution at the police command was that, all claims in the petition were spurious,unfounded and baseless’’.
‘’Right before the representative of the University, the police asserted that, the Congress is only fighting for students rights and all we wanted is to resolve issues affecting students’’.
Explaining what led to the petition against the students body, the students said,it presented management with a list of 10 points demand, which are valid issues that should be looked into. Prominent on the list was the issue of student association.
Some other issues mentioned in the demand include the fact that, students pay for course materials without receiving the course materials. The total amount received for these course materials annually is over 14,000,000,000.00 (Fourteen Billion Naira). We asked why students should continue to pay since they don’t get the materials paid for.
The student sais, ‘’It is not clear, why the University charges a COMPULSORY registration fee for research project for final-year students. Last semester (2014/15 academic session), this fee was charged at N10,000. Now, the University has, for unknown reasons, and without any official notice to its students, decided to increase this fee to the sum of N15,000. For its post graduate students, the University increased the research project fee from N15,000 to N40,0000.’’
‘’Also, the University charges a COMPULSORY registration fee of N11,000 for Industrial Training which is usually deducted directly from the student portal. The University also charges the sum of Ten Thousand Naira (N10,000) from each student in the department of Education before they under-go teaching practices.’’
‘’As at today, National Open University of Nigerian currently has 3 sets of law graduates of which, none has been mobilized to the Nigerian Law School. Also, each students of NOUN had been paying N6,000 as NYSC regularization fee, yet no students had ever been mobilized. Again, after paying for a session fee, the University receive separate fee in second semester. They call it, semester fee.’’
We are asking for the rationale behind all these fees without any corresponding service.
The Students further explained that, ‘’on the 28th October, 2015, management of our institution circulated a memo to all study centers, informing the directors to ban students from having any gathering. In this memo, they repeated the false claim of threat to life of the Vice Chancellor after it had been properly cleared to be false at the police headquarters.
It became very clear to all that, the management knows that the existence of a Student Association will paralyze myriad of irregularities from which the management presently benefits. Hence, their effort to deny students their rights.
While they had consistently failed to get our law graduates to be mobilized for law school since 2013,failed to get our graduates mobilized for NYSC despite receiving fees in this regard, they are vehemently making efforts to cripple justice in their favor.
This unresponsive attitude,extortion and flagnant violation of student rights had provoked the entire students of the institution across the federation so much that the call for a nationwide protest had reached its ultimate high.
In view of this, the students said they have had enough and therefore call for immediate sack of the The Vice Chancellor (Profesor Vincent Ado Tenebe), Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic ( Prof Patrick Eke Eya), Deputy Vice-Chancellor Administration ( Prof Victor O. Adedipe), The Registrar (Mrs Josephine O.Akinyemi), and Bursar (Mr.John M. Onyeme).
They said, this became necessary to avoid break down of law and order in the institution.
‘’We also call for the immediate overhaul of the senate of the institution, as members of the senate are active accomplice and beneficiaries of the numerous irregularities taking place at the institution.’’
Not relenting on their efforts to get justice, the students stated that,the sack of the above individuals is not all they are demanding, ‘’we also demand for their immediate prosecution over the endemic corruption that it currently taking place at the institution.
The students affirmed that, ‘’Let it be known that should the appropriate authorities not act swiftly on this call, students may be left with no option, than hit the street in a peaceful protest to press home our demands.
What are we demanding? Tenebe Must Go. What are we asking for? Our school flexible,accessible and affordable. What do we want? Our freedom to association, Admission to law school and mobilization for NYSC must be sacrosanct. They Concluded.
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