Students call for VC sack

The students of National Open University of Nigeria, NOUN have signed a petition to have their Vice Chancellor, Prof. Vincent Tenebe and other members of the school management removed from office.

In a press statement signed by the members of the Congress of NOUN Students, the students alleged that the school has now become a "den for endemic corruption." They disclosed that the management have, so far, refused to respond to the students' questions regarding why some irregularities continue to happen in the institution. They also alleged that the management shut them down by telling them they do not owe the students any explanations.

The statement, in part, read "As a result of students insistence over the numerous issues, the management felt threatened and sort to silence us by all means.

On 9th of September 2015, leaders of the Congress of Noun Students honoured an invitation by the Nigerian Police at Ikeja police command, over a petition submitted by the management of our institution. In the said petition, the management had falsely claimed that, we threatened the life of the Vice Chancellor, planned to vandalize government properties and incite violence against the institution. The aim of the baseless petition was to criminalize leaders of the student Congress,simply because we asked the University authorities to respect the Nigerian constitution, by granting students rights of freedom of association as contained in section 40 of the 1999 Constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria and to desist from what we adjudged to be extortion without justification."

The statement also made known other issues that are aggravating the students.

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"Students pay for course materials without receiving the course materials. The total amount received for these course materials annually is over 14,000,000,000.00 (Fourteen Billion Naira). We asked why students should continue to pay since they don’t get the materials paid for.

It is not clear, why the University charges a COMPULSORY registration fee for research project for final-year students. Last semester (2014/15 academic session), this fee was charged at N10,000. Now, the University has, for unknown reasons, and without any official notice to its students, decided to increase this fee to the sum of N15,000. For its post graduate students, the University increased the research project fee from N15,000 to N40,0000.'

They then urged the Nigerian president, Mohammadu Buhari, to remove the following members of staff from office The Vice Chancellor (Professor Vincent Ado Tenebe), Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic ( Prof Patrick Eke Eya), Deputy Vice-Chancellor Administration ( Prof Victor O. Adedipe), The Registrar (Mrs Josephine O.Akinyemi) and Bursar (Mr.John M. Onyeme).

They ended the statement by stating that if their requests are not granted, they will be forced to stage a peaceful protest to further press home their demands.