… Students Being Sent Home As Schools Say Government Has Not Sent The Promised Fees
30th January, 2024
Facts available to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Benue State indicate that Governor Hyacinth Alia is yet to fulfill his promise to pay the final year examinations registration fees for students in public secondary schools in the state for the 2022/ 2023 academic session.
Recall that Governor Alia had promised last year to pay the registration fees of students sitting for the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examinations Council (NECO) examinations from the N5 billion Palliatives package he had received from the federal government in August, 2023.
However, with the deadline drawing close for the closure of registration for those examinations in the various public secondary schools across the state, parents are complaining that their wards are being sent home for non payment of the fees.
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Management authorities in those schools are said to have stated that government has not sent to them any funds to register those students, as promised by the governor.
While some of the affected parents have pleaded anonymity, an officer of the Nigeria Police Force attached to the Force CID Headquarters in Makurdi, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Geoffrey Gbidye Tor-usu, lamented that his son, Shakyum Gbidye, a final year student of Government College, Katsina-Ala, has been sent home by the school authorities for non payment of the registration fees.
DSP Gbidye Tor-usu wondered why Governor Alia has up to the deadline mark failed to make good on his promise when the funds for doing so must have been available at the time he made the pledge.
PDP sympathises with the affected parents in the understanding that they did not plan to foot the registration bill, having trusted in the promise of the governor, but are now left in a state of crisis amidst the harsh economic realities of the present times
The party deems this unacceptable, considering that the governor had on a number of occasions stated that the funds drawn from the N5 billion palliatives package were already set aside to fulfill this promise to parents in the state.
We call on Governor Alia to fulfill his promise to pay the registration fees for the WAEC and NECO examinations of the final year secondary schools students, as to do otherwise would put their future in peril, with the attendant negative consequences on the state.
Chief Bemgba Iortyom
State Publicity Secretary,
PDP, Benue State.
