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Hundreds of students of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, in Osun State yesterday trooped out enmasse to protest what they described as the sudden rescheduling of their first semester examinations and the poor welfare condition on the campus.The students had complained that the university had adjusted their original examination timetables, which had scheduled the examinations to commence tomorrow, June 18, and end on Thursday, July 12 by bringing forward their papers to start last Friday, June 15, and end on Monday, July 2.
But in their reaction to the development, the special elective examinations that were rescheduled to hold on Friday were boycotted by the students, who claimed it was a measure that could lead to mass failure.
The students, who mobilised themselves without being coordinated by any constituted union leaders as students’ unionism on the campus had long been proscribed, had moved in droves from their various hostels and assembled at the university’s Senate building to formally lodge their complaints to the institution’s authority.
Some of the students, who preferred anonymity, also complained of irregular water supply to their hostels and constant power outages; the situation they said had made studying difficult for them, “even without bringing forward our papers not to talk of this baseless decision of shift-ing our papers.
“This crisis started around 2pm from Awolowo Hall and before we got to the Senate building, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academics), Prof. Adejimi Adesanya, was on ground to explain why the exami-nation timetable was compressed. He told us that the authority took the decision due to the planned industrial action by the university’s chapter of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities.
“Our grouse in the first instance is that this deci-sion was taken without carrying us along and, apart from this, the supply of water and electricity to hostels is irregular as we have to wake up as early as possible to get to streams to fetch water. This is just unacceptable to us,” one of the students, who did not want to be named, had said.
