Some students from Ondo State’s Ilaje and Ese-Odo Local Government Areas started a protest on Wednesday against their unpaid bursaries.
The irate kids claimed that the state administration had abandoned their communities.
Workers were unable to enter the state Accountant-General’s office in Akure because protesters had blocked the entrance road.
By reportedly neglecting to send the 40% derivation cash flowing to the oil producing area for the development of the region, they claimed that the government was preventing the Ondo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission from doing its job.
The OSOPADEC had not paid its bursary, according to the National President of Ilaje Students Association, who spoke during the demonstration.
The majority of the communities in Ilaje LG, according to him, had been flooded by ocean waves, and the state government had abandoned them.
He said, “This development has deprived our parents of their means of livelihood making it difficult for them to pay our school fees.”
Another student leader, Babalola Gbonigun, said several projects embarked upon by the previous administration in their communities had been abandoned by the Governor Rotimi Akeredolu-led administration.
“The failure of the state government to remit the 40 per cent derivation fund to the OSOPADEC has deprived the oil-producing communities of infrastructure development.”
The protesting students gave the state government a seven-day ultimatum to remit all the funds accruing to the oil-producing communities to OSOPADEC.
They also gave OSOPADEC a two-week ultimatum to pay all the backlog of bursaries due to students of high institutions of learning from the oil-producing area of Ondo State.
“This development has taken away our parents’ source of income, making it difficult for them to pay our school fees,” he stated.
Babalola Gbonigun, a different student leader, claimed that the Governor Rotimi Akeredolu-led administration had abandoned a number of projects started by the previous administration in their towns.
“The infrastructure development in the oil-producing communities has been hindered by the state government’s failure to remit the 40% derivation fund to the OSOPADEC.”
The state government was given a seven-day deadline by the protesting students to transfer all revenues flowing to the areas that produce oil to OSOPADEC.
Additionally, they gave OSOPADEC a two-week deadline to pay any outstanding bursaries owed to students at prestigious universities in Ondo State’s oil-producing region.