Armed Security Men, Protesting Graduates Of Enugu Health Varsity Clash

Armed private security operatives working for the Federal University of Allied Health Sciences, Enugu, Wednesday, confronted Higher National Diploma graduates of the institution who were protesting their non-mobilisation for the National Youth Service Scheme five years after graduation.

THE WHISTLER gathered that the frustrated graduates, in their numbers, had stormed the entrance of the university in the morning but were denied entrance by the private security men.

“They tore our placards and wounded some of us,” one of the protesters told our correspondent. “This is not the first time we carried out protest over the inhuman manner we have been subjected to by this institution, but this is the first time the guards confronted us physically. We didn’t fight them because we are peaceful people. Two wrongs cannot make a right. What we want to know is our fate: some of us graduated since 2020, some last year, but no mobilisation to NYSC. We are becoming burdens to our parents who think that we never graduated.”

Our correspondent reports that neither the Vice Chancellor of the university nor the Registrar showed up to address the graduates when they gained entrance to a premises of the institution where they were restricted from progressing to the VC’s office.

“Our leader was invited to the office of the Dean, Students’ Affairs by the Dean Mrs Ngozi Okafor,” one of the protesting graduates said. “Inside her office, she told our leader to tell us to shun protest and embrace peace. She said the matter was being resolved. This has been the routine. The VC used us to make money. Each of us spent cumulatively about N3m to undergo our academic programmes here. And this is how we have become scammers and nuisance to our parents and society. We remain unemployable, despite our knowledge, because we do not have NYSC discharge certificates.”

Our correspondent reports that the affected graduates are from the Department of Dental Nursing created by the university without accreditation by the National Universities Commission. The university was hitherto called Federal College of Dental Technology and Therapy before its conversion to a university by the administration of President Bola Tinubu.

One of the graduates earlier stated that, “We have been extorted unjustly. We want the ministry of education and NUC to hear our plight. At a time, the VC told us to contribute money for regularisation, leading to our mobilisation for NYSC. Till today, that money has gone down the drain. My parents see me as a scam. I graduated since 2022, and have remained with my parents because no employer finds me eligible because I do not have an NYSC discharge certificate. Our protest is to remind the university that we are still wasting in our villages.”

It was gathered that the university stopped admitting students to its HND and degree programmes of the Dental Nursing Department last year following the protest by the graduates.

The Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof John Emalmo, ignored a letter from THE WHISTLER requesting him to explain his own side of the story.