UNIZIK management is after me – SUG President

The Students Union Government president of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Mr Noble Eyisi has accused the management of the institution of attempt to expel him from the institution for championing the cause of students.

Eyisi in a press briefing with journalists yesterday said his aides are currently being detained in a cell in the school, and that plans were on to also arrest him.

In an earlier response however, the Public Relations Officer of the school, Dr Emma Ojukwu insisted that Eyisi and other members of the executives of the SUG were like their children, and that despite the defamatory letters being circulated by the president against the Vice Chancellor, Prof Joe Ahaneku, the school will not take action, but hopes he will change.

Eyisi had last week led a protest against the Vice Chancellor claiming that the hike in the post UTME examination from N1,000 to N2,000 and the imposition of compulsory N7,500 for biometric data capture were all moves geared at extorting students.

In yesterday’s briefing, Eyisi insisted that since after the protest letter to the VC, there have been attempts to arrest him, just as some of his aides have been arrested and detained at different point, while one, Samuel Ewuama is still being held and denied food in the cell.

“My sin is that immediately after I was elected, I slashed transport fare around the campus to N20, and also championed a decrease in the price of food as sold by food vendors in the campus.

“I am supposed to be getting N20,000 daily from drivers in the school, but I forfeited that just to ensure that the fare is reduced. But when we slashed the price of a plate of food in the campus, the management resisted, just because there is an amount of money which the food vendors pay to them.

“We have told them that the people who buy the food are students and not management, and we know how we are suffering but they refused to listen. That was how they started fighting me.” Eyisi said.

The SUG president insisted that he was not being sponsored by anyone as alleged by the management of the institution to destroy the Vice Chancellor, but he was only concerned about the well being of students of the institution which is his primary constituency.                   

He said the SUG bus has been confiscated, and the management of the institution has long stopped giving it subvention, just as they now collect the Students Union dues and refuse to remit same to the union for running of its affairs.

It would be recalled that just last week, executives of the union had also addressed the press, disowning the president for circulating hate letters and organizing protest     against the management of the school insisting that he has been bought over by unknown persons.