By: Alusine Rehme Wilson
Although calm is gradually returning to the Ernest Bai Koroma University of Science and Technology (EBKUST) Makeni Campus after hundreds of students went on the rampage on May 30, demanding that “no student must be barred from writing to their examination,” 13 students remain hospitalized.
The strike action was ignited by the university administration stands that students must pay their complete tuition fees including other charges before writing to their final examination, a notion which the university’s Vice Chancellor and Principal Professor Edwin J.J Momoh say is a best practice and a general policy that cut across universities in Sierra Leone, but the students say most of them have paid at least 75% of their fees but they have not received their university attires while the those in the nursing department are yet to receive their accreditations and uniforms likewise.
There was complete standoff on campus and some of the Lecturers had to run for safety and to halt the situation we invited the police and sadly I have learned some of the asymmetric students were intoxicated by the firing of tear gas to disperse the crowd, Professor Momoh told a local network.
Contrary to Professor Momoh’s response, there are allegations that the police had used live rounds to restore calm but the Police spokesman sergeant John Abass Kamara has denied the allegation saying, “we’re not aware that any of our personnel fired live rounds to quell the students strike at the EBK-University, what I can confirmed is that some students were hurt by the tear gas and other were injured by stones pelted by their colleagues but we’ve successfully engaged representatives of the university’s student governing body and some senior staff over the incident, and they’ve all committed to enhancing peace while investigations are ongoing.”
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