A coalition of students from the 23 local government areas of Sokoto have debunked financial allegation against the governor’s Adviser on Students matters, Alhaji Abubakar Salame.
The coalition while responding to an earlier allegation against Salame, in a statement signed by the forum’s Chairman and Secretary in Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto (UDUS), Mr Ra’is Umar and Mr Shu’aibu Nasir
said they were directly involved in the students bursary scheme matter, this having indepth knowledge of the development.
Earlier, a group of students led by Mr Usman Yahuza, had alleged that the state government approved tuition fee payments for 5,994 students at UDUS, adding however that only 5,290 students received their payments, leaving 774 unpaid.
The Ra’is Umar and Shua’ibu Nasir led group in their reaction said, they wish to set the record straight regarding these baseless claims.
” The Coalition of student coordinators was part of the committee established by the Sokoto State Government to verify students of each local government area and oversee the proper allocation of scholarship funds.
” Ministry for local government handled and facilitated the bursary payments through funds allocated to each local government,” the Coalition said.
According to them, office of the Special Adviser on Student Matters had served in a supervisory role throughout the verification process after which a report was compiled and signed by the coordinators along with other students union officials.
They highlighted that the Ministry for Local Government handled all payments directly with the university and there are no funds managed by the Coalition or Office of the Special Adviser.
On issus of omission of students names, the Coalition explained that it was issues with Remita payment platform and some students National Identification Number (NIN) challenge.
” During verification exercise, some students faced Remita challenges or had indigene verification handled through their district heads due to indigene status complications.
” Some students also faced with university system issues, such as technical errors or academic inadequacies which delayed their payment.
” At present a committee is verifying these cases, and currently working with the state government to finalize their payments, ” the body said.
The Coalition added that out of 8,600 students presented as Sokoto indigenes, 5,996 were screened and verified by the committee.
They said the committee had worked deligently to reintegrate these students with challenges and ensure that their fees were covered, however, the abnormalities must be resolved to ensure transparency on the system.
The Coalition argued that all the procedures were openly communicated to the students through various platforms, inviting those with issues to come forward for resolution.