Students of the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA) on Friday, protested over the sudden death of a 500-level student of the institution, Ayomide Akeredolu, who slumped and died on Thursday evening.
The students blocked the ever-busy Akure-Ilesha road for several hours as the travelers were stranded on the road due to the gridlock.
All entreaties by some management staff of the institution to the protesting students fell on deaf ears, alleging that the Institution’s medical center lacked basic amenities, which resulted in the death of Ayomide.
One of the students, who spoke with journalists alleged that the deceased slumped in his hostel and was rushed to the University Health Center but due to lack of basic amenities at the university clinic, the student lost his life.
The student said: “We rushed him to the health center around 8:30 pm, when we got there, there was power outage, and throughout the oxygen set up, CPR and injections they gave him, the light wasn’t restored, we had to use our flashlights, this is hard to believe that there’s no backup power supply in the clinic.
“Also, the health center refused to attend to another student, a former FUTASU Vice President who was in a critical condition and needed emergency attention because she was not with her identification card, while the Health Center Director said students should do their worst when accosted.
“The students are expressing their displeasure with a peaceful demonstration and calls on the government to come to their aid as there has been series of similar incidents in the past and demonstrations ended with unfulfilled promises”.
But, in response to the death of the student, the Director, Corporate Communications of FUTA, Adegbenro Adebanjo, in a statement signed by him, described the death of the student as unfortunate in spite of all efforts to revive him at the school’s health center.
Adebanjo called for calm and appealed to the protesting students to sheath their sword while all their grievances will be attended to.