Tuition Fee Hike: Protesting Students Aim For APC Governors’ Throats

The battle between the Lagos state government and the students of the Lagos State University, LASU, has taken a new, political turn.

On Thursday, eight of the protesting students, who were earlier arrested by Police in Lagos state, appeared before an Ikeja Magistrate court charged with breach of public peace.

The accused; Mister Bolarinwa Olamide, Mister Oludare Samuel Olayinka, Miss Oni Victoria, Mister Fatukasi Timilehin, Mister Babatunde Bolarinwa, Miss Ajayi Taiwo, Miss Olatimihan Taiwo and Mister Akani Segun, pleaded not guilty and even alleged police brutality.

Interestingly, some of the parents of the accused have claimed that their wards were wrongly arrested, being neither students nor partakers in the protest.

Lagos State's Babatunde Fashola APC and his counterparts, Ibikunle Oyelaja Amosun of Ogun State and the Ogbeni in Osun State, Engineer Rauf Aregbesola, all of the APC are all having their sails blown around by the wind of student protest raging in their respective states.

However, it did not end in the court premises or on the streets either, The students obviously relocated to Twitterville, where no policeman can stop them, to continue their protest of what they called 'repressive' fees hike.

The students alleged a tuition-fee-hike trend appearing in states under the leadership of All Proggressives Congress (APC) governors - especially Lagos and Osun states.

According to them, the APC as a party is turnig out to be repressive and unfeeling, despite the criticism  of policies of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Most tweets labelled APC as a repressive political party that was being hypocritical. The point was noted by many, including @stanbiggi and ‏@efeosa75.

‏@Blog_Aces warned that other states would soon increase tuition fees in their states.

With the 2015 polls fast approaching the crisis has dire political consequences especially with a large number of people like ‏@DOlusegun warning that the trends was a signal for a war between the APC risks and the Nigerian students' body.

Minority voices like those of ‏@ajisafesamson reasoned that the arrest of the students was done by the police not the political party in control of the state.

But for the majority of the protesters, it is simply a case of the APC trying to make education too expensive for the ordinary student.

Student Pulse would like to know how you feel about the unfolding drama.