Group Threatens Street Protest If Unilag Students Are Not Accepted in Medical School

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Group Threatens Street Protest If Unilag Students Are Not Accepted in Medical School

By Correspondent

The Education Rights Campaign has announced it was considering a street protest in solidarity with the students of the University of Lagos who were barred from medical school by the institution. The group disclosed this recently in Lagos, demanding that the affected students be allowed to proceed to the College of Medicine since they had met the entry requirements. Hassan Soweto, National Coordinator, ERC said: “What we have done today is to announce to the world the crimes that the University of Lagos has committed against these students.” “We are going to follow up with further actions, including lobbying, petitioning, but also practical actions on the streets, protests, demonstrations, to back up the suit that was filed by Barrister Jiti Ogunye over this matter.” The management of the university had blocked some of its 2014/2015 medical ”Žstudents from proceeding to the College of Medicine after introducing new academic qualifications in the middle of the school’s academic calendar. The students were placed in departments other than the one they studied during their first year. According to the students, the new rules were made to accommodate more Diploma students who pay over N400, 000 as against their N55, 000 – into the College of Medicine. Mr Ogunye, a rights lawyer, had filed a suit on behalf of the students at the Federal High Court, Lagos”Ž. Mr Soweto reiterated; “The wheel of justice grinds slowly in this country, which is why we cannot fold our hands and say the matter is in court, we want to wait for judgment. “Even for us to ensure that the court accelerates the process, our protests will go a long way in effecting that because this is not an issue that you can allow to drag on for years because it concerns the future of young people, who will be growing older and getting more hopeless as the years roll by. “So we can’t afford a long judicial process, which is why protests on the streets as well as other political actions have to take place.” The press conference which was held recently had in attendance the aggrieved students under the aegis of UNILAG Medical Students for Justice as well as their parents. One for the affected students, Joshua Ilo who was admitted to study Medicine and Surgery but, based on the revised rules, was posted to Physiology accused the university of failing to comply with its own contract. “In Medicine and Surgery”Ž (allocated a quota of 150 students), out of the 147 students admitted into 100 level, 110 met the university’s requirement for the College of Medicine. But only 60 were selected.” Ilo added; “Diploma is a complementary… in fact, they are supposed to tell Diploma right from the start that it depends on the UTME students that crossed over. “110 crossed over. They would have complemented the 40. So I don’t know how they decided to make it 60 for UTME. Imagine, 60 out of 150. Can you imagine that? “Do you know the courses they are doing in Diploma? They are just doing Physics, Chemistry, Biology, ”ŽMaths. Do you know what we do in UTME? We do several Physics courses, Zoology… compared to Diploma,” Ilo added. 

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