As graduating students prepare to resume in their various schools this week after almost four months of closure owing to the coronavirus pandemic, parents of Ogun State’s private secondary schools pupils have come out to protest the demand of N25,000 COVID-19 test fee by the government.
Many of the parents who protested on the streets spoke against the decision of the government to request that each student pay N25,000 before being allowed to resume school.
The government of Ogun State had said no boarding school student would be allowed to resume without presenting a valid negative COVID-19 test certificate.
Also, the government asked the parents to take their children/wards to designated places to run the test between a specified period of time.
The protesting parents stormed the MTR 250 bed specialist hospital, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta, the designated test centre for the pupils in Abeokuta.
Every attempt to get the pupils tested for free by the parents failed as each pupil was asked to pay N25,000.
The protesting parents said the outrageous amount charged by the government only meant that the government does not care about its citizens.
The parents also complained that the current economic conditions of the country has made it extremely difficult to part with such an amount of money.
