Nigerian nursing college suspends students for ‘inciting silent protest’ on campus

The Seventh-day Adventist School of Nursing management has suspended eight students indefinitely for inciting a protest.
The students identified as Akano Dorcas, Adebayo Deborah, Anah James blessing, Olasode Justine, Others were Aderemi Adeola, Ogunsola Deborah, Sienna Efe, and Adewuyi Omotoyosi were said to have planned the protest.
The planned protest, sources told Peoples Gazette, was because the school management decided to deprive them of meal tickets and entry into the examination hall over non-payment of tuitions.
The management had instructed the students to pay the fees between February 15 and 19, it was gathered.
Though the institution’s principal had threatened they would not be served meals in the cafeteria, the school’s dean pleaded on their behalf.
Displeased with the management’s decision, the students rejected the meals, pointing out it was rather late to have beans as dinner, the source said.
Subsequently, the students contacted other students to join in the protest.
“The students who addressed other students addressed them in Yoruba so that the hostel dean who doesn’t understand Yoruba will not understand what the students were discussing of which a junior colleague interpreted in English, saying the junior ones should not make a noise, pour urine from the stairs, etc., as a form of protest against the injustice,” the source said.
After that, they were summoned by the school authorities to write a statement on all that transpired.
They “didn’t declare to the school that they actually planned not to attend the cafeteria but rather what was interpreted in English.”
The Gazette further learnt that “the students have always been maltreated in their school.
“They don’t have any right even as students and they can’t voice out because they are always scared of expulsion or suspension and they are always threatened,” the source pointed out.
In a letter signed by the Vice Principal, Student Affairs, Owolabi Tobiloba, on February 16, the school suspended the students indefinitely. It also mandated that they vacate its premises immediately, though the affected students did not carry out their plans.

“As a faith-based institution whose interest is to train student nurses in moral and academic standing, we do not give room to truancy,” the letter stated.
Meanwhile, the students have called on the Ministry of Education and the National Association of Nigeria Students to intervene.
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