"8 Years, Still 300 Level" -- Med Students Demand
Compensation, Transfer From Uniabuja
03.06.2013, 14:44 Local
Monday morning, medical students of the University
of Abuja blocked entrance to the school, protesting
stalled medical programmes at Uniabuja without
accreditation.
The students demanded to be transferred to other
universities, complaining they were tired of the school
authorities "lying to us, deceiving us, wasting our
productive years."
They have also demanded that the university pay each
medical student N10 million each in compensation for the
"torture" of attending school for nearly a decade without
accreditation.
The peaceful protest prompted the cancellation of
examinations set for thousands of distance-learning
students.
Early on, the students were met with heavy campus
security intent on forcing open the school gates, which the
protesters had sealed. Students claim security forced the
gates open and threw stones at them, with one insisting
one of the security officers 'used a knife' on him.
Security "broke down the lock we kept on the gate, they
started stoning," he said. "We were on our own. I was
sitting in front of the gate. All of a sudden something came
on [my back]. I turned back to see what happened, then I
saw a cutlass."
Officials insist school authorities could not have ordered
heavy and armed crackdown on protesting students.
Tortured
Moves to accredit medical sciences at University of Abuja
have been stalled for long, and students say they cannot
afford to keep waiting indefinitely.
"People who were still in secondary school when we started
medical school have already graduated, but look at us,"
lamented Uchenna. "We just want to be transferred to other
schools. Let's start out lives."
Their justification for a N10 million compensation comes
from how much money they have committed to studies for
the past eight years - yearly tuition, off-campus
accommodation costing up to N200,000 per year.
"It was never our fault. It was in JAMB brochure we applied
for medicine at University of Abuja," said Uchenna.
Among placards on display, one read: "8 years and still in
300 level"
Without MBBS exams since 2005, the medical students -
more than 100 of them so far - have never officially reached
their fourth year of medical study.
"Most of our students have been at home for the past five
years. It is an infringement on our right to education. All the
final-year students in this school met me in this school. For
how long will this continue?" asks one student. "I will only
leave this school when they gave me transfer, and I want
the transfer to be done within the shortest possible time.
We are tired of waiting for school management that are
inept in getting issues done."
Another student says: "Because hostel accommodation are
not enough, we pay N250,000 every year. This is enough
for us to go outside Nigeria to school and we are hoping that
one day we will graduate from a university in Nigeria - and
someone is sitting upon it playing politics with out future.
We want to be transferred from University of Abuja. We
have been posted for too long."

Todays protest was as usual again clamped down by thugs who are in the payroll of the VC, many attacks the peaceful protesters with stones and knives. Unibuja has been turned into a thug hound by the VC and his acolytes.

violence is never the answer; why will students lock the gate?

otokx: violence is never the answer; why will students lock the gate?

In other climes were the VC's still thinks and behave like an erudite, Violence is not the answer, but in this school, peaceful negotiation and occasional protest have yielded nothing. Enginnering students of the school held the school management to a logjam and they applied intrepid disobedience and did not move their intentions. They finally got a way out. That's how it works in unibuja. The VC is not a gentleman and would not be impressed by a decorous protest. This is what moves him.

The sad part is that people still filled UNIABUJA in this years JAMB. In years to come they will take to the street and want our sympathy/attention.

otokx: The sad part is that people still filled UNIABUJA in this years JAMB. In years to come they will take to the street and want our sympathy/attention.

That need not border you. Admission to the course had long been suspended until accreditation.