The serenity that usually pervaded the atmosphere on the campus of the Osun State College of Health Technology, Ilesa, gave way for the tension, which boiled over and culminated in the rage expressed by the students on January 29, 2018, during a protest over the alleged discovery that some of their courses had yet to be accredited by the National Board for Technical Education.
By the end of the rampage, the students themselves had shut down the school indefinitely!
According to an eye witness, who pleaded anonymity, the protest had started peacefully before it snowballed into a crisis as some angry students chased out their colleagues in the Medical Laboratory Technology department, who were writing examination in one of the campus classrooms, and forced them to join the protest. They also did not spare the lecturers invigilating in the examination.
The crisis heightened, when the students made bonfire, despite pleas by their lecturers. They were said to have overpowered the security guards and shut the school gate.
One of the students, who did not want his name in print, said that the Congress of students of the college had earlier held a meeting and decided that they would boycott lectures and other academic activities to protest the non-accreditation of their courses and other issues they were battling with in the school.
He said, “We were at the gate of the college agitating for our rights. The permanent secretary of the Ministry of Health, the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Yinusa Isamotu, and the Special Adviser to Governor Rauf Aregbesola on Health were all present, when we gathered for the protest. I think they had been informed before hand that we would be staging a protest to condemn the avalanche of anomalies we were facing in this school.
“Our union president was standing in front of us, telling us to be patient, while the health commissioner was addressing us. The students kept shouting and causing confusion. Then a combined team of mobile policemen and Civil Defence stormed the school premises and started teargassing us. They were also shooting sporadically in the air. Many of us were suffocated.”
The eye witness added that many students were injured during the stampede that occurred, following the attempts by the security agents to disperse the protesting students.
In a letter written to Governor Aregbesola after the protest and shutting down of the campus, the college’s Students Union Government pleaded with the governor to intervene and ensure the accreditation of all their courses as well as the mobilisation of students qualified for participation in the National Youth Service
Corps.
The letter, dated January 31, 2018, and jointly signed by the SUG President, Musliudeen, and General Secretary, Ayotunde Muhydeen, reads: “We, the students of Osun State College of Health Technology, Ilesa, hereby write you concerning the state of our college. The union had held a lot of dialogue with the management of the college and all their efforts were
touted.
“Our stands include accreditation of Environmental Health Department, especially Environmental Health Technology, for NYSC; autonomy of the school to become College of Health; accreditation of Dental Health Department (Therapy and Dental Nursing); accreditation of General Health Studies, especially Health Technicians for their national examination; renovation and rehabilitation of the school clinic; construction of the college internal roads; provision of enough lecturers in the college; provision of adequate classrooms for the students; provision of the independent school bus and independent ambulance; provision of standard sports complex and gardeners.”
