The Kwara State Government has directed the College of Education, Ilorin to pay off an outstanding debt of N84million it owed the University of Ado-Ekiti for its affiliated programmes.
The state Commissioner for Tertiary Education, Science and Technology, Alhaji Aliyu Mohammed Lade, gave the directive yesterday following a protest by students of the affliated programmes who were not mobilized for the National Youth Service Corps because of the debt.
The debt arose from the failure of the College of Education to remit a percentage of the school fees of the students to the University of Ado-Ekiti, contrary to the agreements guiding the programmes.
Alhaji Lade who addressed the protesting students yesterday, explained that he had directed the management of the college to go to Ado Ekiti today to settle part of the outstanding payments so as to ensure the speedy computation of students’ results as well as to facilitate their mobilization for the NYSC programme without further delay.
The commissioner said the former acting Provost of the college, Dr. Ibrahim, was ordered to proceed on his accumulated leave immediately over related matters.
He urged the protesting students to be calm, assuring them of the commitment of government to resolving the crisis.
The college was yesterday thrown into confusion following the protest by the students running affliated programmes of the University of Ado-Ekiti at the college.
The president of the students union of the University of Ado-Ekiti, College of Education, Ilorin campus, Mr. Muritala Imam, said the protest was as a result of the failure of the college to mobilize the students for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme seven months after their graduation.
Imam, who was among the 500 students affected, said none of the students denied mobilization was indebted to the school and that they have all completed their academic programmes in the school.
Imam said: “During our contact with the authorities of the University of Ado-Ekiti who are the coordinators of our programme, we gathered that the College of Education Ilorin failed to remit 20 percent of our school fees to the University as agreed by the two bodies”.
He added that the representatives of the affected students had earlier taken their complaint to the Kwara State House of Assembly and security agencies in the state, among other relevant stakeholders.
During the protest that started early yesterday morning, academic exercise was disrupted while activities on the campus were paralyzed as the students barricaded the entrances to the college and burnt tyres on the roads.