AAU Address Students on the Current Issues on Campus 2023

Ambrose Alli University AAU Ekpoma Management addresses students on the current issues on campus.

For the second day running, students have laid siege to the University gates in the name of protests, disrupting academic and administrative activities in the University and violating the University Senate’s decision on the matter. In a letter to Management dated 28th August, 2023, but sent in the following day, the SUG had laid out issues they said students of Ambrose Alli University were contending with. Even before Management could meet and deliberate on the issues, they had started a spate of protests, blocking the University gate.

For the avoidance of doubt, the following are the four main issues addressed to Management by the students and Management’s response:

1. Sudden increment in returning students’ school fees On this, Management maintains that there is no increase in the tuition fees of returning students. As has been stated, the add-ons are payments that have become inevitable in the face of the current prevailing economic realities. Before these add-ons, students, through their NANS leaders, were called to a round table discussion in Benin City and agreement was reached on the categories of the add-ons to the tuition fees. The medical students body also had their date in Benin City to negotiate their fees and add-ons.

2) EDOHIS.

EDOHIS is an outcome of an agreement reached in the 2021/2022 academic session with the Osamudiamen-led SUG. It was then agreed that, for the immediate, only 100 level students should be enrolled in it and that, thereafter, all other students would follow. That session, the 100 level students commenced the payment of the agreed premium for EDOHIS. It should be made clear that the Edo State Health Insurance Scheme, known as EDOHIS, is a policy of the Government and all students in Edo State tertiary institutions have long keyed in. Students of AAU cannot be an exception.

3) ICT ISSUE. Matters raised here by the SUG include:

80% of students are yet to see their GST and ENT results in KOFA
Transfer of school fees payment to Kofa
Non-availability of Courses for registration and,
Transfer

Management wishes to state categorically that all the issues raised concerning ICT are being addressed by the University Management and will be addressed to the letter.

For the avoidance of doubt, the problems associated with the breakdown of Kofa are enormous. The breakdown led to manual applications of students’ records which are being transferred to Kofa now that Kofa is back. Part of the measure to hasten it was the constitution of a task force, which is working assiduously. As of today, over 80 percent of the issues concerning the re-population of Kofa has been done. Talking specifically on the transfer of school fees payment to Kofa, it should be noted that the number of persons affected is high. It was observed that there were some reversals of transfers after the failed transactions and the students who had their failed transactions reversed are, strangely, also requesting that the transactions should reflect on their Kofa. The Bursary, ICT Directorate and the individual banks are painstakingly working to verify the claims of the students. All students should be assured that not one of them will be disadvantaged by this verification, except those who were not sincere in their claims.

4) JAMB Regularisation.

The issue of JAMB Regularisation had long been taken up by the AVC and the Acting Registrar with the Registrar, JAMB. All that was requested for had been complied with, including the uploading of the data of the students concerned into the JAMB CAPS.

Students are hereby informed that the problem of JAMB Regularisation is not peculiar to Ambrose Alli University. As of today, the issue as it affects other universities is in the front burner of JAMB, and they are working assiduously to speed up their ICT network servers which have been slow in processing the requests from all Nigerian Universities.

Management appeals to affected students to be patient and be law abiding in this regard and to go about their lawful business. To all students generally, Management admonishes them not to allow themselves to be used as the state approaches the Local Government Elections scheduled for Saturday September 2nd, 2023. Students are referred to the Senate’s extant law which prohibits the locking of the University gate. Management will not hesitate to invoke appropriate sanctions on individuals or group(s) who violate this and/or take the laws into their hands and cause a breach of the peace in and around the University.

Management assures that it remains open to dialogue to resolve all issues.

Thank you.

Ambrose E. Odiase, FIPMA, MANUPA, MAUA Acting Registrar.

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