Ex-militants on the Presidential Amnesty Programme, who are students at the Benson Idahosa University, yesterday, in Benin, Edo State, protested to Governor Godwin Obaseki over alleged non-payment of their allowances by the Federal Government.
The students had, in a protest letter by Preye Kuete and 27 others to the governor, appealed to him to intervene in the non-payment of their in- training allowances, saying that their counterparts in other universities had been paid up to December 2016, while they were yet to be paid in the past seven months.
The ex-militants had also similarly protested the issue at the main campus of the university, chanting solidarity songs, barricaded the school’s gate and disrupted academic and non-academic activities in the institution for several hours.
They also mounted bonfires within the institution. Meanwhile, the management of the university has described the demonstration as a violation of the school’s rules and regulation.
Spokesperson for the protesters, Preye Noel, lamented that the beneficiaries of the amnesty programme had been studying without the allowances. Noel also noted that their tuition had not been paid by the amnesty office. “We want to tell the world that a hungry man is an angry man.
For several months, our monthly stipend and school allowances had not been paid. We are aware that our tuitions had not been paid to the management of the university. But we have been receiving lectures and writing exams in hunger. “