The University of Benin (UNIBEN) is alleged to have refused to graduate a student for allegedly questioning how school allocation was spent.
Obinna Ezechukwu is supposed to be graduating from the Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Political Science,
According to reports, the students of the university are said to have threatened to shut down the school over the removal of the student’s name from the list of graduating students submitted to be mobilised for the one-year mandatory national youth service organised by the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
Ezechukwu condemned the recent hike in school fees by the university management for students admitted into the 2022/2023 academic session.
The university earlier increased the tuition to N190,000 for sciences and N170,000 for non-sciences students.
Later, the heads of the Students Union Government (SUG) issued a statement after deliberations with the management that the school fees has been reduced to N105,000 for non-sciences and N115,000 for sciences.
However, Ezechukwu queried the increment and asked what the university did with the allocation it got from the Federal Government in 2023 which reportedly runs into billions of naira.
He wrote on one of the school’s social media platforms: “UNIBEN got an annual allocation of N19.53b for 2023.
“Can the management be bold enough to open up their book and tell the public what these funds were used for so we can take away the doubts that these funds are not enough.
“Transparency helps a lot.”
However, following his comment, the university authorities which reportedly viewed it as an incitement, allegedly removed his name from the list of students graduating students in the set of 2021/2022 academic session.
It was learnt that his name was deliberately omitted or removed by the management of the institution to punish him for his comment and deter others from toeing the same path.
SaharaReporters quotes a source as saying in Wednesday that “His (Ezechukwu) name is supposed to be on number 26 in the list but it was removed. What is there is Ezekiel Taiwo Victor.”
Meanwhile, efforts made by SaharaReporters to get the reaction of the university to the allegations were unsuccessful.