Group demands students’ return to Unilag medical school; threatens street protest

The Education Rights Campaign has said it was considering a street protest in solidarity with the students of the University of Lagos who were blocked from medical school by the institution.

At a press conference in Lagos, Monday, the group demanded that the affected students be allowed to proceed to the College of Medicine since they had met the entry requirements.

“What we have done today is to announce to the world the crimes that the University of Lagos have committed against these students,” said Hassan Soweto, National Coordinator, ERC.

“We are going to follow up with further actions including lobbying, petitioning, but also practical actions on the streets, protests, demonstrations, to back up the suit that was filed by Barrister Jiti Ogunye over this matter.”

The University of Lagos had blocked some of its 2014/2015 medical ‎students from proceeding to the College of Medicine after introducing new academic qualifications in the middle of the school’s academic calendar.

The new rules saw the school placing the students into departments other than the one they studied in during their first year.

For instance, a student who was admitted to study Nursing saw herself reposted to Radiography, while another who was in Medicine and Surgery was moved to Fisheries.

On February 10, the affected students and their parents protested the university’s decision, and the university responded by flooding the entrance to the school with armed police officers.

The students alleged that the new rules were made to allow more Diploma students – who pay over N400, 000 as against their N55, 000 – into the College of Medicine.

Mr. Ogunye, a rights lawyer, had filed a suit on behalf of the students at the Federal High Court, Lagos‎.

“The wheel of justice grinds slowly in this country, which is why we cannot fold our hands and say the matter is in court, we want to wait for judgment,” Mr. Soweto said.

“Even for us to ensure that the court accelerates the process, our protests will go a long way in effecting that because this is not an issue that you can allow to drag on for years because it concerns the future of young people, who will be growing older and getting more hopeless as they years roll by.

“So we can’t afford a long judicial process, which is why protests on the streets as well as other political actions have to take place.”

Tuesday’s press conference also had in attendance the aggrieved students under the aegis of UNILAG Medical Students for Justice as well as their parents.

Joshua Ilo, one for the affected students, accused the university of failing to comply with its own contract.

In Medicine and Surgery‎ (allocated a quota of 150 students), out of the 147 students admitted into 100 level, 110 met the university’s requirement for the College of Medicine. But only 60 were selected.

“Diploma is a complementary… in fact they are supposed to tell Diploma right from the start that it depends on the UTME students that crossed over,” said Mr. Ilo, who was admitted to study Medicine and Surgery but, based on the revised rules, was posted to Physiology.

“110 crossed over. They would have complemented the 40. So I don’t know how they decided to make it 60 for UTME. Imagine, 60 out of 150. Can you imagine that?

“Do you know the courses they are doing in Diploma? They are just doing Physics, Chemistry, Biology, ‎Maths. Do you know what we do in UTME? We do several Physics courses, Zoology… compared to Diploma.

“This is utterly ridiculous,” he added.

Another affected student, Oludola Oyenuga, said the university did not warn them they were competing with Diploma students for slots into the College of Medicine.

“The university authorities, through the VC, during the last Convocation claimed that Diploma students performed better than us,” said Mr. Oyenuga, who was moved from Medicine and Surgery to Pharmacology – a course he said he rejected for three years.

“It’s known that we don’t write the same exams (with Diploma students), we don’t attend the same lectures, they don’t use matric numbers.

“If you had told us you want to put us in the same class and grade our performances according to our exams, that should have been the case, rather than‎ arranging another exams for the Diploma students where they just write Biology, Chemistry, and Physics.

“Compared to us who run the normal university two semesters, about 18 courses with practicals and tests. The VC cannot claim that we didn’t meet the requirements.”