More than 200 students across public secondary
schools in Osogbo on Tuesday staged a peaceful
protest to register their opposition to the
compulsory presentation of three years tax
payment receipts of their parents as ordered by
the Osun government.
The aggrieved students, who assembled at the
Olaiya junction in Osogbo at 11a.m., took to the
streets, causing a traffic gridlock as they
marched toward the Government Secretariat at
Abere.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) gathered that
the state government had made it compulsory
for students in public schools to present their
parents’ three years tax clearance certificates
before they could be admitted or allowed to
write examinations.
One of the students, Abayomi Olusegun, who
spoke to NAN, said the protest became
imperative as the government, which had not
paid their parents’ salaries, was now demanding
three years tax clearance certificates.
The students, who said they were ejected out of
their schools due to their inability to present the
tax clearance, insisted that they would only
comply when the government pays workers’
salary.
They called on the state government to pay the
salaries of their teachers and parents without
further delay so that academic activities would
resume in public schools.
The protest by the students, however,
terminated at the secretariat where Mr
Lawrence Oyeniran, the Permanent Secretary in
the state Ministry of Education, addressed
them.
Oyeniran stated that the tax scheme was
introduced so that the parents of students could
pay their taxes as part of their civic
responsibilities.
He urged the students to go back to their
classrooms with the assurance that the matter
would be resolved.
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