Auchi Poly students stage peaceful protest

Fed up by the indefinite strike action embarked upon by teaching and non-teaching staffs in their institution , aggrieved students of Auchi Polytechnic, Auchi, Edo State, on Monday staged a peaceful protest within and outside of the premises of the institution.

The students in their hundreds created a blockage on the ever-busy Benin-Okene-Abuja expressway in front of the school gate and carried placards bemoaning their situation.

Some of the placards read, “We are tired of sitting at home”, “Management don’t care about us”, and “We want lectures now”.

The blockage created traffic on the ever-busy expressway for hours even as motorists appealed to the students to vacate their occupation of the road so that they could pass.

Some of the protesting students said their decision to embark on the peaceful protest and block the road was to draw the attention of Nigerians to their plight, regretting that the institition had not enjoined normal academic activities in almost one year.

One of the protesting students, Momoh Aliu, said they had virtually not done anything on campus since they resumed after the completion of the last examinations, adding that they had to wait for about two months to write the examination after it was postponed due to students’ unrest.

Academic activities at the Federal polytechnic were paralysed last Monday after the unions under the aegis of Academic Staff Union of Polytechnic (ASUP), Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Polytechnics (SSANIP) and Non-Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (NASUP) in the institution embarked on a strike action to force home their demands.

The workers are asking for the payment of N1.8billion owed them by the management of the institution and to be enlisted on the CONTISS 15 Migration Salary Structure.

The Public Relation Office (PRO) of the institution, Mr Mustapha Oshiobugie, had last week stated that the institution’s management could no longer fund the CONTISS 15 Migration Salaries.

Oshiobugie said that management had been using Internal Generated Revenue (IGR) to fund the salaries of workers, adding that it could no longer sustain it due to non approval by the Federal Government to upset the fund.