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.
According to the source, the college amalgamated the programme with the Department of Environmental Health to acquire certification, resulting in a demand for an extra N65,000 from each student for index registration, on top of the N30,000 already paid.
Students accused management of extortion and responded violently by stoning vehicles and setting fire to the provost’s mansion.
Some of the college workers fled the scene in fright before security arrived.
Meanwhile, the school’s provost, Sawwa, responded by calling the charges that he conspired with a particular entity in Oyo State to extort N23 million from students at his college “fictitious, baseless, and mischievous.”
He refuted reports that a specific course was created, resulting in extra student payments, describing the notion as the imagination of those disseminating it.
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 claimed that the demonstration was sparked by an anonymous source from those publications who did not balance their reports but rushed to press to appease their paymasters, who he claimed had been working around the clock to bring the college down with outlandish claims and false allegations.
He also advised the students and management to exhibit restraint until the exact cause of the students’ agitation was determined.
“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 personnel intervened and drove the demonstrators away.
In response to the event, the Kebbi State Police Command’s Public Relations Officer, SP Nafiu Abubakar, announced that more information will be supplied once the Divisional Police Officer in Jega was available.
