The much awaited and disputed second semester Examination of the Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RSUST) has last Monday 17th September, 2012 commenced, despite mounting opposition from the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, students and some well-meaning individuals of Rivers extraction.
When The Newswriter visited the campus of the school to ascertain the true position of things students were seen trooping out of classes, confirming that the exam actually took place. Some of them who spoke to our reporter however said lecturers were not there to supervise the exams. Others alleged that they did not exhaust their lectures before the exams were set.
We also gathered that soldiers were drafted to coerce the students to write the contentious examination.
Addressing journalists on the matter, Mr. Desmond Wosu, the Deputy Registrar and Public Relations Officer (PRO) of RSUST dismissed claims that lecturers were not involved in the exam.
According to him, it is not compulsory that every lecturer should supervise the course he is teaching or belong to ASUU and therefore, while some lecturers pitched their tents with ASUU, others were lecturing and also participated in the exam.
Wosu dispelled rumours that the students did not exhaust their timetable before the exam.
The PRO was emphatic that any student that did not complete his classwork before the exam should be blamed for absenting himself from lectures on the sheer rumour that there was strike.
On the impasse between ASUU and the university management, the PRO said, there was no problem between the two parties. He said what a fraction of ASUU was claiming was that the appointment of Prof. Barineme Fakae as Vice Chancellor did not follow the so-called due process and government has insisted that it acted on the advice of the governing council and therefore due process was followed.
Wosu exonerated management from the recent attack on ASUU members during their congress meeting, saying that management could not have descended so low to sponsor thugs as alleged.
He said whatever happen; the management is still appealing to ASUU to sheate its sword and embrace dialogue in the interest of the students and the state.
Adding his voice to the matter, the chairman of Joint Campuses Committee, Rivers State Secretariat, of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Comrade Ledogo La Amabu said the second semester exam of RSUST held according to schedule and the students are happy for it. He corroborated the position of the PRO that the students were not coerced to write the exam.
He however appealed to ASUU to call off its strike and enter into negotiation with the state government for the sake of peace and the interest of the student, which he said is of paramount importance to NANS.
Meanwhile, that ASUU has insisted that the purported 2nd semester exams without lecturers are mere charade and remain unconstitutional. According to the chairman of ASUU, RSUST chapter, Dr. Felix Igwe, “It is unfortunate that the university has elected to conduct an end of semester exam after only five weeks of lecture as against twelve weeks as stipulated by National Union of Universities’ Congress laws. Igwe described the exam as, “a calculated attempt to under develop the students with respect to the requisite knowledge and understanding of the content of the second semester courses in the 2011/2012 academic session.
He therefore dissociated ASUU from the exam and called on all lecturers and students to resist this act of impunity/imposition of exam on the ill-prepared students. ###
Barth Ndu
