The board of the Cross River State College of Technology has debunked the allegation of forcibly ejecting students from their hostel in the early hours of Friday.
This came on the premise of mostly female students between the ages of 18 and 25 who were seen on the street begging for transport fare to return home, alleging that the school ejected them from their hostel.
Speaking with Daily Post, some of the students, who gave their names as Linda Odey and Grace Brown, in their 20s, explained that at the beginning of every school session, they usually pay a cumulative sum of N25,000.
“This amount includes other fees associated with the hostel, which sum up to the annual fee of N25,000.
“Four of us combined to pay N25,000 each, amounting to N100,000 for four-bed spaces in a room,” Grace said
According to Linda, many of them are not indebted to the hostel authorities, adding that the students have stayed peacefully until one Pastor Mike resumed as head of student affairs.
Another affected student explained further that when Pastor Mike made the move initially, the students presented their receipts but the man insisted that he wanted to start his tenure on a clean slate.
“So when we were posted to different health-related government offices to enable us do our practical training, the man used the opportunity of our absence in the school hostel to force open our rooms and threw out our belongings which littered the school premises”, Grace sobbed.
However, the provost of the institution, Jane Adah said that the students were not forcefully ejected from the hostel facility.
She maintained that students were given the liberty to vacate the facility due to planned renovation.
She further stated that not many of the students were paying the official hostel fee of N15,000, adding that some of them did not go into College account due to alleged fraudulent activities of hostel officials.
“It is untrue that we forced our students out of hostels, causing them to be stranded.
“The facilities inside the hostels were extensively damaged. And it became imperative that management should fix them.
“So we notified the students that before August 31, repairs and general facelift would occur for three weeks.
“The new students’ affairs officer, a pastor, was encouraged to right the many wrongs.
“There have been some fraudulent collections of hostel fees and associated fees, such as for toiletries, etc, which raised the amount to N20,000 and this often ended up in some persons’ pockets.
“Again we noticed that many of these students would later admit more persons secretly to the hostels.
“We also discovered that these students stay beyond their durations in the school because of the connivance of some officials”, she said.
