ALLEGED EXTORTION: STUDENTS SET COLLEGE PROVOST'S RESIDENCE ABLAZE IN KEBBI

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Students of the College of Health Sciences and Technology in Jega, Kebbi State, have set fire to the provost’s home, Alhaji Haruna Saidu-Sauwa, over an alleged extortion attempt.

During the violent protest, his house was set on fire, and his vehicle was vandalised.

The protest erupted over allegations that the college management extorted N23m from the students regarding index registration for 250 graduating students.

It was gathered that the controversy originated from a newly introduced public health program, which was initially affiliated with reproductive health and the Public Health Association of Nigeria.

The college was reported to have integrated the program 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 previously paid.

Students accused management of extortion and responded violently by stoning vehicles and setting fire to the provost’s mansion.

In response, the school’s provost, Sawwa, dismissed the charges that he conspired with a particular entity in Oyo State to extort students from his college for N23 million as “fictitious, baseless, and mischievous.”.

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.”

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.

Meanwhile, normalcy has returned to the college after security agencies intervened and chased away the protesters.