Ondo law students protest non-payment of book allowance

LAW Students from Akure South Local Government Area of Ondo State, on Monday,  prevented workers of the council from gaining access to the premises of the secretariat, over the non-payment of their book allowance.

The students under the auspices of the National Association of Akure Student (NASS) who arrived at the local government as early as 7:30 am blocked the main gates leading to the local council located along Ilesha garage,  Akure, the state capital.

The protesting students who were mainly law students from various tertiary institutions across the country vowed not to vacate the gate of the council until the Chairman of the local government address their grievances.

The students who were armed with placards of various inscriptions such as, ‘ Chairman don’t play politics with our money’, ‘ We are students, we are not thugs’, ‘Pay our book allowance’, ‘Book allowance is our right,’ among others.

According to the protesting law students, they have been receiving the allowance since the period of the immediate past administration of the council but said the present administration in the state stopped the payment without any reasonable explanation.

Speaking on behalf of the protesting students, Olaniyi Ogundipe, explained that the leadership of the council had not shown any seriousness about the payment of their book allowance running to N3million.

They alleged the leadership of the council of playing politics with their education, saying the state government has also been insensitive to their plight and decided to stage the peaceful protest to press home their demand.

He said, ” We decided to embark on this protest because it seems the council leadership does not want to pay the money, the money is now over N3million and the Chairman has been telling us that there is no money.

“She initially agreed to pay N1.5million from the money and we agreed but up till now nothing has been paid and there was no news about the payment.

The Caretaker Chairman of the Akure South Local Government, Mrs Margret Atere could not be reached on her telephone line when a call was put across to her but one of her aide who picked the call said she was in a meeting

The state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) Mr Femi Joseph, the command has deployed some policemen to the spot to avoid the protest from being hijacked by hoodlums.

Joseph said “The students have right to protest but our own duty is to ensure they maintain law and order and not to allow hoodlums to hijack the protest. That was why we sent our men there”