Education

GSS Ilorin exchange students protest ‘overdue vacation’

 

By Adebayo Oloda with Agency Report

Exchange students of Government Secondary School, Ilorin, Kwara State on Saturday, protested what they termed overdue vacation and poor welfare.
The students from about 18 Northern states, as early as 6am took to the streets and blocked Fate and Old Jebba road, causing traffic gridlock.  It took the intervention of the anti-riot squad of police to disperse the students.
Speaking with journalists during the protest, one of the senior students who is on exchange programme but craved anonymity said, “During school session, we don’t have good food, no portable water and it has been over a year since we last enjoyed electricity.
“Now that it is time for them to take us home, they said the state does not have money, and they have stopped feeding us as well, how do they expect us to survive?”
Similarly, another student, who identified himself as Umar Ibrahim, said, “We are suffering. The whole country should come to our aid. Kwara students go to our state and they are well taken care of. They access quality education and the state government bring them promptly. They have no reason to complain but look at us here, instead we did not even complain, but we have to take to the street for government to hear our pleas, we are suffering.
“No good food, no electricity for the last one year in a school environment. No security, if not for the old student’s intervention, we probably will have been receiving lectures under the tree now but the state government is doing nothing about it.”
However when contacted yesterday, the Kwara State Commissioner for Education, Hajia Bilikisu Oniyangi, said the students never protested over poor welfare or facilities.
The Commissioner who said she was at the school twice on Saturday, stated that the exchange students were only registering their grievances over their continuous stay in school while their colleagues in other states are on break already.
“The exchange students never protested over poor welfare and dilapidated facilities as being reported. You need to go to the school and see the quality of facilities available.
“If they were actually protesting over poor welfare, then why was no regular student among such protest? What the students demonstrated about was what they perceived as overdue vacation as their colleagues in other states are already on break,” she said.
Government Secondary School (GSS), Ilorin, Kwara State is the oldest post-primary institution in the state and among the oldest secondary schools in the country.
Established in October 1914, after the British amalgamated the Northern and Southern Protectorates to form what is today known as Nigeria, the school celebrated her 100 years of existence in 2014.

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