Students protest compulsory presentation of parents’ tax clearance certificates in Osun

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.