BREAKING NEWS………UNIVERSITY OF MAKURDI SHUT DOWN.....

A group of persons who claim to be students of Benue state University, Makurdi, on Monday, May 21, shut down academic and non-academic activities on the school’s two campuses in protest against the hike in their tuition fees.  The students went on a protest after the university management introduced new conditional charges that resulted in an over 65% hike in tuition fees for new students.  The students blocked all the entrances leading to the university campus along the Makurdi/Gboko federal highway, demanding that the university management reverse the tuition increase without any delay to enable the new students carry out their necessary registration. However, armed security personnel, comprising police, civil defense and DSS were stationed at the main gates of the university while some of them were seen chasing the protesting students out of the campus.

Reacting to the development, the acting registrar of the university, Catherine Terlumun Bur, said that “some group of miscreants parading themselves as students of the university, in the early hours of Monday 21st May 2018, took over, locked up and displaced the security manning the main gate of the university, bringing to a halt the inflow and outflow of human and vehicular traffic into the university, including nursery and primary school pupils for reasons yet to be ascertained.” Terlumun Bur, in a statement, noted that the action was particularly worrisome in view of the fact that the university was scheduled to commence accreditation of programmes by the National Universities Commission (NUC) from Monday, May 21, 2018. She stated that the university was yet to conduct election into the leadership of the Student Union since the expiration of the tenure of the last executive committee, stating that the university does not have any student union leadership currently to direct such a protest on campus. The acting registrar warned the perpetrators to vacate the gate in their own interest, vowing that the university will “not hesitate to avail itself of lawful means to deal with the situation.” The workers expressed displeasure over government's failure to implement the agreement it reached with them during the strike. The workers said they were also unhappy with the rate government is giving approvals for the establishment of new universities instead of resources to be concentrated on raising the standard of existing one.