EKSU students protest high internet charges

Students of the Ekiti State University (EKSU) Monday have protested the prohibitive charges of wireless internet connection imposed on them by the management of the institution. Early on Monday morning, thousands of the students had converged on the only entrance to the campus and locked the main gate to the university to prevent students and staff members from gaining entrance into the campus.
The students, who carried placards shouted such slogans as “Enough is enough, we do not need wireless internet connection in the university,” “We don’t need your internet connections anymore,” “We are not ready to pay heavy charges anymore,” among others. The students sang antimanagement songs, as they marched round the main gate of the university. However, they did not destroy or mishandle any of the institution’s property.
The students said the N13,500 charged by the management for wireless internet connection for two semesters, which most students did not subscribe to, was exploitative, adding that the management did not consider the current economic challenges facing them, and especially their parents, who are civil servants that are being owed several months arrears of salaries. One of the students who preferred not to be mentioned, said he regretted for choosing EKSU for admission because since his admission into the university, the tuition fees have been rising without any consideration for the plights of their parents.
A spokesman from the protesting students said that they decided to embark on the peaceful protest to inform the EKSU management that they could no longer pay for internet connection that was meaningless to them, because “Most times, the internet connection was not always available for us to use, and they prefer to subscribe to internet services from the telecommunication outfits.”
He alleged that academic staff members were the people enjoying the internet connections. “Most of us use phone with various communication data, so, we don’t use the school internet connection because it is not useful to us. “We therefore, want to appeal to the management to remove the wireless internet connection from the school charges because it is not convenient for us and our parents.