Benue Varsity students protest hike in tuition fees

From Uche Nnorom Makurdi

Students of Benue State University yesterday embarked on a protest over increased in tuition fee by the institution.
The students blocked the Makurdi-Gboko Highway in the early hours of yesterday, carrying placards, 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 which also, houses the Nursery and primary school pupils.
In a swift response to the incident, the university authority in a press release signed by its Acting Registrar Mrs. Catherine Terlumun Bur, and made available to our reporter condemned the act by the students most of whom are old students as particularly worrisome’, in view of the fact that the university is scheduled to commence accreditation of programs by the National Universities Commission, NUC on Monday 21 May, 2018.
It noted that the university is yet to conduct election into the leadership of the Student Union since the expiration of the tenure of the immediate past executive, hence, it does not have any Student Union leadership currently.
They averred that the protest is politically motivated and warned the perpetrators to vacate the university in their interest as it will not hesitate to avail lawful means to deal with them.
“Management also called on parents and guardians to advise their wards to restrain from actions capable of breaching the peace on campus as no student had engaged management on any grievance whatsoever.
“ The university wishes to inform all bonafide students to go about their registration and other normal academic activities as the first semester of the 2017/2018 academic session has commenced in earnest”, the Registrar said.
It should be noted that BSU recently increased its tuition fee for new students from N56,000 to N92,000.