Pay up or get expelled, U.S University tells Bayelsa state students

Around twenty Bayelsa students from the Lincoln University Pennsylvania, USA, may face expulsion due to non-payment of fees by the Governor Seriake Dickson led government.

The students on scholarships have appealed to the state government to pay their school fees to prevent their expulsion. Recall that in 2016 the students faced the same situation with the state in default.

The undergraduates, who are in their final semester at the tertiary institution, appealed to the government to immediately initiate payment process to avoid jeopardising their continued stay in the institution.

One of the students, Akpos Akins, said via telephone from Pennsylvania, USA, on Tuesday that the school authorities alleged that the estimated outstanding fees stood at about $970, 000.00 (about N300m).

Akins said that since the payment for the first session, subsequent payment had not been regular.

He explained that the university would not even honour payment by students or their parents as the management insisted that such arrangement would run contrary to the agreement signed with the Bayelsa State Government.

He said that the management of Lincoln University had been very good to them despite failure of the government to meet up with payment for some time.

“We appeared to have become a source of burden to the management. We are very worried and disturbed.

“We have been given three weeks to pay up before the school’s management takes action. And without our Transcript, we cannot proceed with Industrial Training known as OPT or go to graduate school.

"The management is then obligated to report us for deportation seeing we have no further business in the country.

“Our time and efforts would have been wasted if that happened. We want to be seen as worthy ambassadors of Bayelsa state. We are going through psychological trauma now; we cannot even focus on our studies,” Akins said.

Last modified on Tuesday, 11 April 2017 18:59