Osun State College of Education Students Protest Planned Merger
Students of Osun State College of Education, Ila Orangun on Monday staged a fresh protest over the alleged planned merger of the college with another state owned College of Education in Ilesa.
The students, who were armed with placards with various inscriptions stormed the palace of the Orangun of Ila, Oba Wahab Oyedotun, where people of the community were holding a meeting to deliberate on the alleged plan by Governor Rauf Aregbesola to merge the college with the one in Ilesa.
The students stormed the venue of the meeting where chiefs and other leaders of the town had gathered. It took the organizers some minutes before they were able to calm down the protesting students.
The students warned the governor against going ahead with the plan, saying they would resist the policy with everything they had.
The Secretary of Ila Orangun Community, Mr. Yemi Adeoye, who addressed journalists said the people of the town had resolved that the status of the college should be allowed to remain the way it is.
They said the restructuring would lead to reduction of academic programmes and population of the institution which was established in 1979.
Adeoye said the restructuring would leave the college with just two academic programmes adding that this would affect the economy of the town whose residents depended on the college with 15,000 students for their source of income.
He said, ” It is our humble submission that the present state government is being requested not to change the College of Education at Ila to that of primary and technical education and continuous education centre.
“The status quo should please be allowed to remain. This is very important because of posterity and the generation yet unborn. The blood of Marty, Adepeju Oyedotun whose untimely death precipitated the birth of the college is crying in support of Ila Orangun community.”
Residents of Ila Orangun and Ila Orangun Students Association led by its president, Mr. Rilwan Sulaiman and the Student Union President of the COE, Ila Orangun, Julius Akinleyin, had on Saturday marched round major streets in the town singing anti-government songs based on the rumour that the government had given a directive to governing councils of the colleges to work out the merger of the institutions.
