UI Students refuse to vacate campus

The school ordered the closure of the campus after students staged a protest against the rustication of a 500 Level student of Petroleum Engineering, Tunji Ekpeti Michael, on Tuesday, April 26.

They have now chosen to camp outside the school gate with one student revealing that they are cooking food. On Wednesday, April 27, the students stated that they were still on campus and decided to organise communal cooking.
Students took to social media yesterday where they posted several pictures of the cooking session. In a hilarious post, the students invited Vice Chancellor, Prof. Abel Idowu Olayinka to partake in the meal.

One of them wrote: “Since the school management told us to vacate the halls of residence for staging a peaceful protest against the rustication of a student (Mote)…because he participated in a peaceful protest in one of the halls (Independence Hall) and poor state of electric and water supply,
UItes have also decided to stay back in school.

We don’t have any plan of going anywhere!”
“In fact, we are currently at the school gate where we are actually cooking something really delicious …
Tell the vice chancellor to join us, there’s always love in sharing,…you are also invited!” While the protest lasted on Tuesday, students, who expressed their dissatisfaction over poor electricity and water supply in the university and alleged rustication of a Petroleum Engineering student, Mr. Tunji Epeti Michael, locked the varsity gate, sang and beat drum to air their views.

They prevented lectures from holding, hindered free vehicular movement by blocking the roads in the campus, but ensured they did not engage in violence.
On Wednesday, the student union denied the accusation by University management that the students’ protest led to the destruction of school properties as stated by the school management.

A statement released by the union partly stated,“The UI management should tell the world why it has chosen to forcefully disperse almost 30,000 students to go home over diplomatic reinstatement of a SINGLE student back on campus in the face of bad Nigerian roads and economic realities.

They should also tell the world why it has consistently failed in providing light and water to the University community, a situation which aggravated the protest.”

The school management is yet to give an official response to the situation.