OAU students Protests Closure of School Gate following the Death of Final Year Student

Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife students have protested against the closing down of the school on the directive of its management.

The aggrieved students stepped out as early as 7:30am on Saturday as they stormed the streets within and outside the campus in Osun State.

They shut the campus gate and blocked the major roads leading to the school, insisting that the management must rescind its directive on the total shutdown of the campus and that students should vacate the hostels.

This action was triggered by the death of a final year student who was being rushed ti the “health centre”.

OAU students have insisted that the management must withdraw the directive to close the school.

Authorities at the institution had ordered the closure of the school and directed students to vacate the hostels following a protest sparked by the death of a final year student, Aisat Adesina.

They blamed Aisat’s death on personnel who they said did not attend to her properly when she was rushed to the medical facility.
According to an anonymous source, “Asisat died in the health centre, the girl was sick, how can she be looking for her health centre card or her ID card, treat her and make her stable first,then you ask for what she needs, if she doesnt have, then she pays for the services rendered”.

However, from many other source,their request were being pronounced accordingly.

“The first thing we want the management to do is to open our school with immediate effect; we want it now,” said Salvation Grace who is the Vice President-elect of the union.

“We want justice for Aisat, we want justice for Korede (another late student), we want justice for every student who went to that health centre in their lifetime and were not treated properly.”

But the management of the institution had a different view, saying the closure of the school was a necessary decision to take at the moment.

OAU Public Relations Officer, Abiodun Olarewaju, explained that the management took the decision after appealing to the students on four different occasions.

“If you say you are protesting, it is your fundamental human right,” he said. “But you should not allow that protest to lead to violence.

“Blocking the Ife-Ibadan Highway and the Ife-Ede Highway for nine consecutive hours is not right. We now envisaged a situation that as things were going, the university should be proactive and do the needful.

While many students assembled  at the Students’ Union building to speak against the management’s decision, newsmen observed that others came out of their hostels with their belongings.

Meanwhile, sources said late Aisat would be buried on Monday at the school’s cemetery.