…Calls On Deltans to reject hike.. Protesting students ask Varsity Mgt, Okowa to review increase
The opposition All Progressives Congress, (APC) in Delta State has stoutly condemned the Governor Ifeanyi Okowa-led administration for its recent unprovoked hike in school fees in the state-owned universities, describing the government’s action as a display of insensitivity to the plight of the already impoverished Delta masses.
In a press release issued by the Director of Publicity of the Delta State APC, Olorogun Dr. Wilson Omene, the party lamented that in a state where the population of out-of-school children is growing at an astronomical rate, increasing school fees by as much as 300 percent, was not only inhuman, but a demonstration of extreme wickedness on the part of a government which promised prosperity for all Deltans.
According to Omene, the unprecedented hike in state-owned Universities by the Okowa-led administration is yet another display of avarice, greed and diabolical deceit on Deltans, adding that it amounts to the perpetration of blatant impoverishment of the people of the State.
He said: “The recent highly insensitive hike in school fees heartlessly imposed on Deltans by the rudderless and failed PDP-led administration of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa is especially wicked coming at the present time.
“It is clear that as the curtain is drawn on this colossal mistake of a cash and carry administration, the PDP is hell-bent on the further impoverishment of the good people of Delta before it is finally sent packing forever.
“The Okowa administration is a monumental and complete failure that has not been able to create any opportunity of any sort for the people of Delta State. This is the height of governance by a macabre philosophy of pathological avarice, maniacal greed and diabolical deceit.”
The APC Director of Publicity stated that with the volume of money coming into the government coffers which positions Delta State as the highest beneficiary from FAAC monthly, it ought not to raise school fees in public schools beyond the reach of the common Deltans, adding that this is one burden too many to bear by parents who struggle to send their children to school.
He further described the hike in fees of State-owned Universities as another unpopular moves by Gov. Okowa to further pauperized the average Deltans, having secured a N12 billion loan which has been described by analysts as undesirable.
“Everyone knows the huge amounts of money the state has been making from what were already exorbitant school fees charged in the various institutions across the state. There is no state in Nigeria which makes more money from school fees than Delta with its plethora of educational institutions yet, in its pathological greed, the state government is insistent on collecting ever more from hapless students and their already overburdened parents.
“If it is not a humongous and quite shady loan of 12 billion naira that the state clearly does not even require and can easily do without, that is been borrowed at our expense, then our Governor and the PDP are finding other ways to mismanage the state for their betterment and to our detriment.
“This is an administration whose sole achievement is a handful of corner roads and alleyways which are so poorly constructed that they have all either failed or are failing before our very eyes as we speak”, Omene said.
He declared the opposition of the APC to the school fees hike, adding that the party reject it in toto, just as he called on people to equally to reject it.
“The All Progressives Congress, APC, Delta State, completely oppose this latest additional hardship imposed on the people of this state by a PDP administration that clearly does not care how our people survive from day to day and the fees must be immediately reverted back to what they were.
“We urge the good people of Delta to close ranks, come together as one and, purposefully oppose this increase in school fees in a state that can afford the very best for our children without further milking their already stressed parents dry”, he concluded.
Meanwhile, angry students protested against the recent school fees hike by shutting access to the gates of the Delta State University, Abraka. The students who stormed the main campus of the University yesterday, shut down the main gates and all other access roads to the University, thus creating heavy vehicular hold up on the road.
The students who displayed placards with different inscriptions, appealed to the University authority to withdraw the increase in the fees, adding that they would not want to embark on yahoo rituals and or sex trade to generate their school fees following the unprecedented increase.
“We don’t want to be involved in ritual activities and sex trade in search for money for school fees”, the protesting students stated.
The New Diplomat learnt that the Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Andy Egwunyenga has said that the issues with the recent increase in school fees will be resolved amicably with the students.
