Students of the Federal College of Education (FCE), Akoka, Lagos State, have staged a massive protest against the decision by the school management to install CCTV cameras around the female hostels inside campus.
The protest as gathered by DAILY GIST started in the early hours of Friday after the School’s Dean of Students, Wahab Azeez, was alleged to have entered the hostel at midnight, to chase female students out, over some behaviour he couldn’t condone which he saw via the cameras.
Some of the students alleged that the CCTV camera was installed almost everywhere in the female hostel thereby denying them of personal privacy.
Some female students also alleged that the school management and lecturers had been watching their nakedness and nudes since after the installation of the cameras, as they claim their lecturers had said it to their faces before.
A female student and an Exco of the Student Union Government (SUG), Latifat Abiodun, told THISDAY that, “The Dean sent some students out of the hostel because he saw them on CCTV camera and he came around 12a.m. to chase the students out of the hostel,” she said.
Also speaking, the Electoral Chairman of the SUG, Morakinyo Oluwafemi said, the Dean of the school improperly invaded the female hostels at night.
“We are in a school that if students agitate, the lecturers will threaten the students with failure in exams. The Dean invaded the female hostel at midnight and we can’t even say what he is going there to do at that time.
“Here in Federal College of Education, Akoka, we lack a good environment to study, the sewage pipes are all broken, and there is no compliance with the federal government rule of social distancing in the school amid COVID-19.
“The hostels houses over 7,000 students which is far beyond the capacity of the facility,” he said
The Secretary General of the SUG, Ibrahim Olubade, described the school management decision to install CCTV cameras in female hostels, while the school lacks other basic facilities important for learning.
“We don’t have a school portal in the institute to check student’s information, yet the management installed a CCTV camera in the female student’s hotel. There are so many things to be done to help the students.
“We don’t have good toilets in the school. Most times, finding bathing water around the school is difficult. The classes and hostels are overcrowded and the management is not doing anything about it.
“We have on several occasions’ written letters and complained, but they don’t care,” he said.
As at the time of filling this report, DAILY GIST has not been able to reach the school management for comments on the alleged report