In the wake of molly-coddling of the rebellious students of Fourah Bay College by the State House Chief of Staff, Kaifala Marah, such actions have now been extended to the Congo Cross campus of the Milton Margai College of Education and Technology (MMCE&T) in Freetown.
This time, the MMCE students are acting like rebels over an issue of not very clear significance. MMCE students metamorphosed themselves into a new set of ‘Rebel Students’, different from those at Fourah Bay College (FBC) because they claim someone or the other has delayed to endorse the winner of their recent students union elections.
The rebel students on Tuesday 7th August 2012, held a demonstration that led to the interruption and indefinite postponement of the college’s ongoing end of academic year examination.
College students from whom much is usually expected in any society, were seen acting like rebel commandoes ordering troops to set up road blocks and burn dozens of tires all over the campus. They then assembled at the entrance of the campus and chanted slogans such as “No Students Government! No exams! We will burn down this campus!”
When some of the student rebels were approached by Awareness Times, they insisted that they were demonstrating against the failure of the college administration to recognize the newly elected Students Head (Governor) of the Congo Cross Campus, Mr. Emerson Kamara, who is a Higher National Diploma Year I Student of Accounting and Finance.
The student rebels further claimed that since the pronouncement of a winner by the Campus Electoral Commissioner who recently conducted the elections but who stays at the Goderich campus of the college, he has refused to make an official declaration to declare Emerson the winner as the procedure demands.
As a result of this refusal, the students have decided to go on the rampage by staging such a rebellious conduct regardless of how subsequent disciplinary measures might affect their future. They actually disrupted ongoing exams simply because the candidate voted for as Governor has been denied the so-called right to govern.
A senior lecturer at the Milton Margai College, who identified himself as Mr. J.M. Kamara, spoke to Awareness Times. He expressed dismay over what he described as the rebellious acts demonstrated by the students in a country just moving forward and putting its violent past behind it. He said students are trained to build up a career and choose their path in life at the University so students should not place a higher premium on politics more than academic work.
Mr. Kamara said for students to even equate their students’ college politics to that of their final examination, is a sign of no respect for what they really have been sent to do at college by their parents.
It could be recalled that less than a week ago, a cross section of students at Fourah Bay College also metamorphosed themselves to rebels on campus and viciously disrupted exams which have now been suspended indefinitely.
All attempts to reach the administration of the MMCE&T have proved futile. Journalists who visited the Congo Cross campus at about mid day on Wednesday 8th August 2012 met all lecture rooms and administrative offices sealed with giant padlocks and the campus was as empty as a ghost town save for one old man who said the rebellious conduct of the day before had caused the closure of the campus.
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