Following the postponement of first semester examination by management of Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, over non-payment of school fees, some students have lamented the development, heaping blame on scholarship boards of indigent states over delay in tuition fees payment for their students.
Tribune CampusXtra reports that the school management on Thursday night, announced postponements of first semester examination of the 2022/2023 academic session by a week, over logistics issues, urging students to use the window for tuition fees payment and registration on the school portal.
However, the news did not sit well with some students who had either canceled their engagement elsewhere due to commencement of the semester examination or drawn other plans in anticipation of the scheduled date of Monday, July 24.
This was the case with Abdulkareem Adeshina, like many other students who spoke with this reporter. According to him, he had just let go of a training conference which clashed with the initial commencement date.
“What pains me most is that I was selected for two different in-person conferences in Abuja where I will learn certain skills that will help my career. One of the programmes will hold between 24th-27th of July, which I had told the organizer that I can’t make it to Abuja due to the semester examination,” Adeshina lamented.
Abdulkareem was not only pained by the shifting, keeping it till such a moment when he could no longer retrieve the opportunity of a life-changing training is more painful.
“It is so infuriating that it is after I cancelled the appointment that the university changed the examination date,” he said.
Another student, Usman Usman (not real name), a 300 level student of Zoology complained bitterly over the reschedule after his full preparation for the semester examination.
Usman believes that rescheduling of the examination schedule is because of Sokoto and Kebbi indigenes under state’s government scholarship who are yet to complete their registration.
“I heard from some of them saying boastfully that ‘how can you do an exam when the son of the soil has not completed registration? This really hurts me so much,” he bemoaned.
A 300 level student of Law, Kadir Musa, expressed displeasure over the shifting of semester examination commencement date. He also claimed that the extension is because of students under scholarship who have not done their payments.
“The decision is very painful and heartbroken. It is going to weaken the strength of students who have been preparing tirelessly for the examination,” he said.
Comrade Mubarak Aliyu Kaffe, who is the general secretary of Sokoto State Students’ Association (SOSSA), while speaking with Tribune CampusXtra explained that “The intervention of Alhaji Ahmad Aliyu, the Governor of Sokoto state is to pay N35,000 for each of the Sokoto indigenes studying in UDUS and the disbursement has started since Thursday, July 20, 2021.”
“Due to the half payment of the Sokoto state government, Sen. Ibrahim Lamido, the senator representing Sokoto east senatorial district, promised to pay the remaining half payments of students under his district in which the verification is ongoing,” he added.
Comrade Mubarak explained that the delay in payment of tuition fees of Sokoto indigenes is from the government.
“What delayed the Sokoto scholarship payment is that the government did not collect the students’ account details during the verification process. It’s recently that the government called back the verified students to come and submit their account details for disbursement,” he explained.
He affirmed that the past administration of Sokoto State government is owing the university but the new Governor of Sokoto has set up a 5-man committee to negotiate with the university regarding the debt.
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