Protest: We Are Serving Interest Of Our Students – AAU Management

By Raphael Okhiria

The Senate of Ambrose Alli University (AAU), Ekpoma, has approved the extension of normal course registration on the portal for the 2023/2024 academic session by two weeks.

The Senate at after an emergency meeting on Thursday, also approved the registration of courses for some students who paid school fees and participated in examinations in the 2022/2023 session but did not do so then.

The emergency meeting following a peaceful protest at the University gate by some students requesting that they be allowed to register their courses which they failed to do in the 2022/2023 session, and some law students over a ‘Proceeding’ list released by the Faculty of Law.

According to a memo issued and signed by the University’s Acting Registrar, Comrade Ambrose E. Odiase, after the meeting, “the
Senate considered its extant rule that provides that only students with a CGPA of 3.0 and above in the Faculty of Law should proceed to the next level.

The rule is to ensure that the University maintains its leading role of providing excellent and quality legal education for its students and to comply with the admission quota prescribed by the Council of Legal Education.

“Based on the response of students to the implementation of this rule and the appeals therefrom, Senate magnanimously approved that a CGPA of 2.5 be used to determine those to proceed to 300 level in the Faculty for the 2022/2023 session only.

“Senate also considered the extension of normal course registration for the 2023/2024 session, and graciously approved that normal course registration in the University be extended for another two (2) weeks period, I.e from Thursday 6th June, 2024 to Thursday, 20th June 2024. Senate hoped that students would seize the opportunity of this magnanimous extension to complete their course registration within the new window.”

On the issue of non-registration of courses by some students who paid school fees and participated in examinations in the 2022/2023 session, Senate approved that 1 (one) week be given for them to carry out the course registration formalities, through the ICT back end.”

Senate further approved that “all other students experiencing difficulties in course registration should write to the Chairman of Senate through their respective departmental board of studies and Faculty Boards. These would be considered based on their individual merits. These requests must be made within the next two (2) weeks from Thursday 6th June 2024, to Thursday, 20th June, 2024.”

Meanwhile, the Management of Ambrose Alli University has described as completely false reports making the rounds in some media platforms that the students were protesting alleged Management’s “harsh policies.”

The University, through its Head of Corporate Communication and Protocol, Otunba Mike Aladenika, in a telephone interview with a cross section of journalists said: “Issues canversed in the media are a far cry, overbloated and distant from the reality here and what the students were asking for.

“You can see from the resolutions of the Senate of the University that the University means well for its students. The protest was led by students who failed, through faults of theirs, to follow through with existing extant rules of the University which they are conversant with, and those who had issues with the ‘Proceeding List’. On the course registration issue, while thousands of their mates in the University obeyed the deadlines, which were extended several times, and are not having issues, these ones didn’t.

“The University Management met with their leaders several times prior to this protest, but they remained adamant and kept insisting that the University must turn the hand of the clock backwards and open the portal for them to register for a session that had already passed, with all its technical consequences.”

Otunba Mike Aladenika lamented that from the reports in the conventional and social media on the protest that he had read so far, it had become clear that several interests had come into this matter and some people were adding fuel to fire for their political benefits.

He singled out some reports that were coming even while the Senate was still meeting, inflaming passions, reporting non-existent “crisis” in the University, and the video where an unidentified person was talking about the University being purportedly closed by Governor Obaseki to favour a University allegedly owned by an alleged brother of the PDP governorship aspirant, Barrister Asue Ighodalo.

“This is madness taken too far! How could a protest by students translate to a governor, who was not even aware of the protest, closing down the University for the interest of a gubernatorial aspirant?”

Aladenika noted that for several months now, Ambrose Alli University has been enjoying peace. “Academic activities have been going on smoothly here. Salaries are being paid regularly, the last one being the May salaries which were paid to the University workers as early as May 24th. Our inaugural and other lectures have been going on smoothly. For more than a year, in fact, since May, 2022, we have had an uninterrupted academic calendar. We advise politicians to steer clear of our University and not use it as cannon fodder for their shenanigans and campaigns. This University is a peaceful place. Politicians should leave us alone.”

Otunba Aladenika enjoined members of the University community and the general public to disregard the said reports in their entirety.

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