Irate students at the College of Health Sciences and Technology in Jega, Kebbi State, have set the residence of the Provost, Alhaji Haruna Saidu-Sauwa, on fire and vandalised his vehicle.
The protest erupted over allegations that the college management extorted N23m from the students regarding index registration for 250 graduating students.
A source within the college who spoke with our correspondent on the condition of anonymity said the controversy originated from a newly introduced Public Health programme, which was initially affiliated with the Reproductive Health and the Public Health Association of Nigeria.
The source said the college merged the programme with the Department of Environmental Health to secure certification, leading to a demand for an additional N65,000 from each student for index registration, in addition to the N30,000 already paid.
Accusing the management of extortion, the students responded violently by stoning vehicles and setting the provost’s residence on fire.
Some of the college staff members fled the scene in fear before security personnel arrived.
Meanwhile, the provost of the school, Sawwa, in his reaction, described as “fictitious, baseless and mischievous” the allegations making the rounds that he had connived with a certain body in Oyo State to extort students of his college to the tune of N23m.
He denied the allegations that a certain course was introduced leading to payment of additional money by the students, which he described as the imagination of those spreading the story.
He said, “The said publications carried an unknown source who gave his own version of the story. I challenge the person to come clean in his allegations of student extortion and his claim of course duplications.
“Let me state here in categorical terms that I and the school management have no hand in the said allegations of course duplications and extortion.
“Our school operates the Single Treasury Account where all monies belonging to the school are paid to and no one has access to the account including me.”
He alleged that the protest was triggered by the anonymous source of those newspapers who didn’t balance their report but hurriedly went to press to satisfy their paymasters who he said had been working round the clock to pull down the college with outrageous claims and untrue allegations.
He further urged the students and the management to exercise restraint till the true cause of the student’s unrest was unravelled.
“Our stand remains we know nothing about the claim and allegations of the unknown source. We are happy no one was hurt and we are working with security personnel to nip in the bud the organisers of the protest which affected my personal car and other things belonging to the college. We distance ourselves from the unknown source of the newspapers.”
Meanwhile, normalcy has returned to the college after security agencies intervened and chased away the protesters.
Reacting to the incident, the Kebbi State Police Command’s Public Relations Officer, SP Nafiu Abubakar, stated that further details would be provided once information from the Divisional Police Officer in Jega was available.
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