Tunbosun Ogundare – Lagos
Many parents, on Friday, in Lagos, stormed their children’s schools during lectures to pick them home following the widespread protests amidst the cash crunch ravaging the country.
Our correspondent monitored the situation around Abule-Egba, Agbado-Ijaiye, Alakuko, and so forth and observed that students of both public and private schools in the axis were affected.
Many shop owners in the axis including POS operators and particularly those near major bus stops such as Ijaiye, Kollington and Alakuko also hurriedly closed their shops for fear of possible attack by the rioters.
Everybody was in panic as the atmosphere was tense.
However, some of the schools visited by Saturday Tribune include Ijaiye Ojokoro Junior and Senior Colleges and Ijaiye Housing Estate Junior and Senior Secondary Schools as well as several private schools, all under Ifako–Ijaiye Local Government area of the State.
The students were seen going home from around 11.45 am against their normal 1.00 pm scheduled time for Fridays.
They told Saturday Tribune that their teachers asked them to go home as the Naira scarcity protests spread fast and would not want them to be trapped in schools.
They said they had done some lessons meant for the day before the directive.
For students in private schools, especially those in nursery and primary level, their schools sent text messages (SMS) on phones and WhatsApp platforms to their parents asking them to come quickly to pick up their children home, citing the same reason for the directive.
Some of the students also told our reporter that they were equally told that would be on a one-week midterm vacation from next Friday, February 24th to March 3rd.
But when contacted, the Head of Public Affairs of the state’s ministry of education, Mr Ganiu Lawal said he was not aware of any directive asking students to go home before their 1.00 pm closing time on Friday.
