Photos: OAU students barricade roads over transportation hitches

By Shina Abubakar Osogbo

The students of Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, Ile-Ife, on Tuesday morning barricaded the busy Ife-Ede road in protest against the inadequate transportation system in the school.

The students had complained of hitches against the new transportation system which was birthed after the first lady of Nigeria, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, donated 50 new buses and 30 CNG-powered tricycles for campus shuttle to sanitise the campus from the regular commercial buses and motorcycles.

The Students’ Union, in a statement signed by the president, Adelani David, complained of the inadequacy of the new system, declaring a 72-hour boycott and threatening protest if the school management did not allow the mixture of the old transport system and the new one pending the supply of more buses.

But as early as 7am on Tuesday, students barricaded the Ife-Ede road, diverting traffic from the road, which led to a gridlock and also stopped vehicular movement going in and out of the campus.

Some of the students who joined the protest were singing solidarity songs, saying, “Students are tired of walking.” “Bring back our transportation system” and “50 buses not enough for OAU students”, among others.

Members of staff and other persons with business inside the school were not allowed access, which forced some people to go through the alternative routes to access the campus.

Speaking with newsmen, the union’s president, Adelani David, said the protest is to drive home the demand of the students to ensure adequate vehicles for the new transport system or allow the old and new ones to co-exist; for the time being, more buses would be added to the existing ones.

“The demands are simple. First, the present system has a crisis because the buses are not adequate; except more buses are added to the existing ones, the shortage would persist despite the effort of management to bring the coastal buses onboard. The situation is getting worse week after week.

“We, therefore, demand that the management bring back the Town-Gboro buses, and if you’re not going to bring them back, ensure that the number of buses that we have is enough to cater to the population of the university. And pending that time, all academic activities should be halted because, without that, there is no means of transportation on campus. Yesterday, students were trekking as far as the gate to the campus; situations like that should not be happening.”

The union also berated the university management for attempting to renovate the Awolowo Hall of residence when the school is already in session, adding, ‘There is nowhere students would go.’ There is nowhere you can push students. They cannot put them in another hostel. So now, renovation cannot go on while we are in session. Therefore, shift the renovation till after the session.”

He also tasked the management to resolve discrepancies around the school e-portal after it was renovated, saying, “The e-portal has a lot of discrepancies. Nobody is against renovation, but the E-portal has a lot of discrepancies. We have to solve that particular issue. For example, the payment from results should be halted. We shouldn’t be paying to get results. We were not paying before, so why do we have to pay now?

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