Protesting students held the Commissioner of Tertiary Institution, Dr Afeez Abolore, the acting Provost, Dr Ahmed Jimoh Ayinla and other officials of the Kwara state College of Education , Ilorin, hostage for almost two hours on Wednesday.
They also blocked roads a development that caused traffic jams in the area.
The police later fired teargas at the protesting students and the institution had since returned to a state of normalcy.
The students, who were protesting against the decision of their lecturers not to go ahead with the ongoing examination because of nonpayment of salary, chanted solidarity songs.
Students at the institution had just finished taking the computer-based examinations and were expected to start the written examination today, Wednesday, 19 October 2022.
The lecturers are being owed July salary, (full), they got sixty percent of their salary in August and full salary for the month of September.
They are therefore being owed full salary for the month of July and forty per cent of August salary.
Demanding that at least sixty per cent of the July salary should be paid , the lecturers had according to a source threatened that failure to get alerts this morning will leave them with no option than to stop the ongoing examination.
Commissioner for Tertiary Education, Dr Afeez Abolore ,who had arrived at the institution on Wednesday morning , had moved straight to the academic board room to hold meeting with the management team whilst the meeting was ongoing, representative of the students’ union entered the meeting venue uninvited and announced that they were giving the Provost a 10am- ultimatum to resolve the issues and threatened to ‘strike’ if this was not done.
They subsequently carried out their threat and while holding the commissioner and others hostage, the students also vandalized the academic board building.
A source , who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Team@orientactualmags.com that the students took the action to force those in charge of the institution to take necessary steps and stop the lecturers from going on strike while another source also claimed that a certain development recorded during Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrasaq’s visit to the institution on Friday irked the lecturers.
‘Chairman of the senior staff association at the institution, Musa Mustapha and the Provost almost exchanged words during the governor’s visit and many had consequently leapt to conclusions that the Provost was not forthcoming when it comes to the welfare of staff while the governor was considered as one willing to do anything to improve their welfare.
Musa complained about some issues but the Provost cautioned him and the governor had to instruct the Provost to come up with the list of complaints and bring it to his table for attention latest yesterday Tuesday.
It was rumoured that the Provost did not do this and this made some of the workers to be naturally angry with him and the students will definitely react based on what they are told’ said a source -Team@orientactualmags.com
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