The fees were hiked from N35,000 to N120,000 for returning students while freshmen are to pay N200,000 as against N50,000.
The protest caused traffic snarl on the busy Ikwere Road.
Despite the presence of armed policemen at the school gate, there was however, no confrontation as the students were peaceful.
The students alleged that the school authority has threatened to dismiss any student who fails to meet up with the payment of the new tuition fees, which will take effect from the 2012 academic session.
The protesters’ spokesman, Emeka Chidi, said: “The move by the school authority to hike the school fees is a wicked act and insensitive.
“This is a means of discouraging the poor from going to school.
“Most of us sponsor ourselves in school, some of us hawk , some do menial jobs that earn as little as N15,000 a month and out of that we strive to go to school.
“But it is disheartening that the government does not consider the masses in its educational policy.”
Chidi, however, called on the National Assembly and other relevant authorities to intervene in the matter by urging the university to revert the fees .
He warned that if the fees are not reversed, the situation may force the students into the streets and thereby increasing crimes and militancy in the state.
“ We urge the National Assembly to intervene because we desire to go to school and become useful citizens but if something is not done to address this arbitrary increase; it may push some of us to the streets,” he warned.
The university’s spokesman, Williams Wodi, said he is not aware of the protest but he admitted that there was an increase in the students’ tuition fees.
Wodi said the increase was as a result of pressure from the school management in the running of the part-time programme.
His words: “The Federal Government does not fund the programme and therefore the hike was done to sustain the programme.
“When compared to other institutions which run similar programmes , Uniport’s current fees remains the least.
“The programme is not funded by the Federal Government so it is putting pressure on the authority.
“We called a meeting and told the student leaders that it is either we close down the programme or increase the fees to sustain the university and we reached an agreement.”
He said the programme is distracting the management from attending to the regular students.
The spokesman also noted that the programme was meant for students from the age of 30 and above but regretted that students who are below 20 now enroll due to failure to meet the regular students’ standard.
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