LIVE updates as YabaTech students defy rector’s order to vacate campus
We call it a wrap for the day. Check the minute-by-minute flow below. And click here to read about how Dazan Charity died. Thank you for staying tuned.
YabaTech has placed a four-week suspension on all academic activities, and students have left the campus. They should return some time in March, 2016.
1:05 p.m. – Both gates are now opened. Students are leaving en mass. Lots of the students are gone.
Four police patrol vehicles just entered the campus with sirens blasting. They’ll most likely chase the remaining students out of the school, and enforce the rector’s evicting order. YabaTech students should return after four weeks.
Dazan Charity will never return. ? ?
12:51 p.m. – A Security official of the school, again, tries to persuade the students to let staff out. He succeeds! Exodus as main gates are flung open!
A journalist tries to capture the moment. Students seized his camera. Gobe!
12:27 p.m. – A student: “I have spent two years and nine months already. I’ll spend one year for national service (NYSC). These four weeks may turn to six months. That’s a total of four years for HND!”
Now, that’s some tragic math right there.
Again…
12:23 p.m. – The police are here. They can’t come in though.
Students issue warning: “Sabo police, we dey see una o. If you throw us teargas, we’ll throw you stones.” Recall the police teargassed students on Wednesday? Here’s the story.
12:12 p.m. – An officer is addressing the students. “None of the members of the management can access the campus because the gates are locked. Let’s maintain decorum, peace. The meeting that started yesterday is ongoing.”
The officer is saying students that want to go should be allowed to. Students insist that no student will be allowed to leave.
Members of Staff would be allowed to go on presentation of their ID cards. That liberty does not extend to Medical staff. Some members of staff are disputing that stance.
“Don’t bring that, you’re not our employer. You didn’t tell us to come with our ID card when we were coming this morning.”
The table seemed to turn right there. Students recount how security officers harass bonafides who don’t carry ID cards around. Wow. What a life.
11: 50 a.m. – LOL!
Students had a good laugh as one of them almost got stuck while trying to scale the gate.
The students had asked for a one-week shift in the examination date. They are waiting to see what will happen by the 12 noon deadline. The school suggests the students are lazy for demanding the shift. The students are also accused of capitalising on Dazan’s tragedy to indulge in doing nothing demand for the reinstatement of the student union government (SUG). Now, that’s not so funny.
11:18 a.m. – “If you’re carrying bag, go back. Nobody is allowed to go out, people are only allowed to come in.”
Protesting students are saying that to colleagues who want to exit the campus. Some students are now scaling the gates…just like they did on Wednesday.
11:07 a.m. – Someone is urging students to leave and that they are negotiating with management to keep the hostels opened until the weekend for students who are not resident within the state. Protesting students almost mobbed the guy.
10:58 a.m. – Female student: “I don’t trust the medical centre people. We don’t have a health centre, it’s a death centre. No matter the kind of sickness you complain of, all they give you is paracetamol. Anything more expensive than that you’ve got to go buy it yourself. Their negligence led to the death of a final year student just four months ago. And now Dazan is dead.”
Live updates on the Yabatech crisis via @NewsroomDaily
— Femi Falodun (@Hephef) February 11, 2016
Not enough people are reporting this sad story. https://t.co/JP9HBzKMLt
Our future leaders. 😂😂😂😂 "@Aypantsula: Fight here and there!!! Angery yabatech students!!!!"
— ARMANDO VALENTE (@KvngArhlex) February 11, 2016
WATCH: How YabaTech medical staff escaped as students go gaga
Workers at YabaTech medical center, on Wednesday Jan. 10, 2016, broke through facility's fence to escape protesting students. The students launched the protest after a final year colleague took ill and died. Read the story here http://buff.ly/1PE2XNW
Posted by Newsroom Daily on Wednesday, February 10, 2016
10:54 a.m. – Students are complaining about the state of the medical center and the attitude of its staff.
“Awa o raye osi o! (We don’t have time for nonsense!).” A student with sickle cell disorder (CSD) said she was told that at the medical centre last year.
10: 38 p.m. – Someone gave us a perspective.
“The school didn’t have N35 for Dazan’s treatment. But they spent over N200,000 on her burial.” Here’s how students said Dazan died.
10:28 a.m. – Students are not allowing fellow students who want to go home to leave.
Some students were arrested yesterday. They’ve been released. Buildings are being locked up. But that is being done by the school authorities to forestall vandalism.
10:10 a.m. – Student: “We want to mourn Dazan for two weeks and write exams immediately after. We want to remain on campus.”
10:08 a.m. – Students are making their voices heard with these cardboard messages.
The school, in a statement after Dazan’s death also suggested that protesting students are lazy asses who are scared of writing exams.
YabaTech, onWednesday night, directed the students to leave by 12 noon on Thursday. The students are staying put.
Yaba College of Technology (YabaTech) students are up in arms after a final year colleague Dazan Charity died “due to neglect” on Wednesday.
The school had directed the students to vacate the campus by 12 noon on Thursday. But the students say they are going nowhere.
They’ve sealed entrances to YabaTech and are not allowing their “jittery” colleagues to leave.
