By Rashidah Nakaayi
12 Makerere University students will spend the night in the cold after police nabbed them for protesting increment of tuition fees.
The students, mostly girls, attempted to match to the president’s office in Kampala when police and military pounced on them.
They were marching with placards with messages reading “tuition must fall’ and, ‘Uganda government where are you’ among others.
Yelling on top of their voices, the girls clad in black t-shirts threatened to raid Speke Road to vend their thighs to pay tuition fees.
They accuse the university authorities of over hiking the fees consequently leading to thigh vendors and school dropouts.
According to the students, tuition fees for those in year 1 has been increased by 30% while year two students by 15%.
They told Galaxy FM 100.2 that the changes mean students on bachelor’s program will have to part with two million eight hundred shillings per semester up from one million eight hundred shillings.
Kampala Metropolitan Police mouthpiece Patrick Onyango has begged the students to drop their sticks and sit down on a round table with the university management
Makerere university public relations officer Kiggundu Muhammod’s phone went an unanswered when we contacted him for a comment on the strike.
Award winning journalist and writer who has worked as a stringer for a couple of acclaimed South Africa based German journalists, covered 3 Ugandan elections, 2008 Kenya election crisis, with interests in business and sports reporting.
