TUNEDIK students take destiny in own hands, resume at Ifaki

By Sulaimon Olanrewaju

Students of TUNEDIK demonstrating
on the streets of Ado-Ekiti. The final part of activities organised to mark the centenary anniversary of the Federal School of Surveying, Oyo, by the management has been conluded. kehinde Adio reports.

The students of the University of Education in Ekiti State, sick and tired of staying at home indefinitely, last week resumed at the Ifaki campus of the school even when the authorities of the school had not asked them to resume.

According to some of the students who spoke with the Nigerian Tribune, having been at home since February due to no fault of theirs, they were peeved by the politics which the location of the school had been subjected to and had decided to force both the school authority and the government to resolve the crisis with a view to ensuring immediate commencement of academic activities.

The university, established by the Segun Oni administration in 2008, was initially sited at the cvampus of the state-owned college of education in Ikere-Ekiti, hence the name; The University of Education, Ikere-Ekiti (TUNEDIK).

But the location of the university in Ikere-Ekiti was with the understanding that the college of education would be moved to Ifaki Ekiti since, according to the directives of both the National Universities Commission (NUC) and the National Council of Colleges of Education (NCCE), a university and a college of education cannot co-exist on the same campus.

However, the attempt to relocate the college from Ikere-Ekiti to Ifaki-Ekiti was resisted by the indigenes of the former. This prompted the government to resort to leaving the college in situ while getting a new place for the university. This did not also go down well with the people of the town who wanted both the university and the college in the town.

According to a source in Ikere-Ekiti, “the college has been in existence for about three decades. It has over the years become the bedrock of the economy of this town. So many landlords around here depend on the patronage of the students of the college, so do retailers and many others.

Now, if the college is taken out of this town there is no way it will not have a negative effect on the economy of the town. Don’t forget that the university is just taking off and will not have a high student population like the college. ”

Despite the resistance put up by Ikere-Ekiti people to the relocation of the university, the government went ahead to relocate the university. This led to another logjam as some people raised an objection that the law setting up the university states that it should be located at Ikere-Ekiti and not Ifaki-Ekiti.

They said for the relocation to be effective, the edict has to be amended to reflect that the university should be sited at Ifaki-Ekiti. Since February when the issue was raised, it had become a situation of motion without movement.

Apparently, the students who were offered admission and had not even spent up to one semester in the university before the system became paralysed got fed up with the politics of the location and decided to recall themselves from the unwarranted vacation.

Apart from recalling themselves from the forced holiday, the students also stormed the streets of Ado-Ekiti, state capital, last Monday with placards bearing various inscriptions such as “our future is at stake”, “TUNEDIK resumes today”, “we have come to stay” and “nine months is not a joke”.

The students claimed that they were forced to take the decision after making several failed attempts to persuade the state executive and legislative arms of government on the need to re-open the institution. They added that they could no longer waste their time and future on a matter that should be resolved peacefully by politicians.

The Monday protest was led by the Mobilisation Officer of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Comrade Sola Fayemi, who said the students had exercised enough patience by staging several peaceful demonstrations at the premises of the state House of Assembly, the Governor’s Office and the Ikere-Ekiti High Court where there was a pending suit over the matter.

They lamented that the nine-month closure of the university was having an adverse effect on the finances of their parents and guardians who could no longer bear the cost of their feeding and other sundry activities.

Speaking with Nigerian Tribune on the action, Fayemi said that about 200 students mobilised themselves to hold a protest at Ifaki-Ekiti to sensitise the people of the state on the need to prevail on those who were delaying the re-opening of the university to have a change of heart as the future of about 500 students was at stake.

“This morning, we decided to take our fate and destiny in our hands as we are tired of the game being played by the executive and legislative arms of government over the closure of the institution. Moreover, we are becoming tired of the delay of the high court to give its ruling on the pending case on the matter”, he added.  

A student of the university, Tayo Abiola, said the students had resolved to stay put on Ifaki-Ekiti campus until the crisis was resolved. According to him, “We have to do that to avoid further wasting of our time. They have wasted too much of our time. We have been at home since February.

When ASUU (Academic Staff Union of Universities) strike was on, we knew that we could not be in school. But now that ASUU strike has been called off and everybody has left home, why should we still be at home. Our decision to resume in school is our way of telling the school authority that we are ready to continue with our study. The location does not matter to us.”

Tayo added that, “I have a friend at LAUTECH (Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso) and another one at the University of Ilorin; we were offered admission at the same time. The one at Ilorin is already in 200 level; while the one at LAUTECH is almost finishing his second semester and I do not even have an idea of when I will finish my own first semester.

This is not fair. If these people do not know, what they are doing is tantamount to destroying our future. How can we move forward, given the situation on the ground now? We do not care who is in PDP or who is in AC. We are not bothered about the politics; all we want is a resolution of this problem so that we can continue with our study.”

However, when the Nigerian Tribune visited the Ifaki-Ekiti campus of the university, though students were found all over the fully residential institution, there were no lecturers around.

“The lecturers have not been attending to us,” one of the students said. “We are, however, optimistic that very soon lectures will commence. We have made up our mind not to give up until the crisis is resolved.”

Though the authorities of the institution said that no directive was given the students on their , an officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the management of the university had a letter directing it to relocate to Ifaki-Ekiti.

The officer added that an emergency meeting of the university’s governing council would be summoned to discuss the matter.  He said the management of the institution was not oblivious of the plight of the students, noting that their matter was being handled with utmost care and caution because of the large number of students involved.

 Noting that the students had earlier made two failed attempts, including the use of radio announcements to resume at the campus, he, however, expressed surprise that virtually all the students came to the campus with their luggage.   

 He said all the facilities needed to facilitate normal academic and non-academic activities had been put in place at the university’s temporary campus at Ifaki-Ekiti.