Students of Adekunle Ajasin University Akungba Akoko Ondo State, Federal Polytechnic Ado Ekiti Campus have called on the Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof Olugbenga Ige to quickly address the breach of trust and agreement in their admission process and the entire arrangement of the affiliated programme.
The students embarked on a protest, mounted the Federal Poly Ado Ekiti Gate with different placards having different inscriptions, alleging that the AAUA management through the Directorate of University Affiliated Programme deceived them into the programme by assuring them that it was a full time programme and that they would be mobilized for the compulsory one year National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) at the completion of their four years programme.
Part of the words on the placards includes “AAUA SCAMMED US, WHY JOKE WITH OUR FUTURE? AND WE TRUSTED AAUA, WE WANT MOBILIZATION FOR NYSC, UNIVERSITY SHOULD BE REPUTABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY, SAVE US FROM DEPRESSION, OUR PARENTS ARE WORRIED, MORALS NOT MONEY, BEWARE OF AAUA AFFILIATED PROGRAM among others.
Expressing their sadness and total disappointment in what the outcome of school arrangement is becoming, they said that many of them who graduated as the first set of the school are yet to be mobilized for NYSC programme, three years after graduation while some of them were given EXCLUSION LETTER, different from the initial made-belief arrangement during admission.
The students who said that they are currently stuck, expressed frustration saying the program instead of emboldening them to face life is hindering their paths forward.
According to a male student who spoke on the condition of anonymity, “Our parent and guidance are beginning to doubt us, they committed very huge investment in sending us to this institution believing that we had the same opportunity with those on the main campus, the AAUA Directorate of Affiliated Program kept assuring us of a standard of the arrangement, there was even a time that the VC and the registrar came to us here and told us not to panic and that everything was in order.
What other assurance do we need to have when authorities have assured? Where is integrity? Here we are now and the AAUA/ FEDPOADO reality is dawn on us. Or may be the school management at the main campus is unaware of this whole thing because if they are aware, it should not be this way, the VC as we know is a man of repute and a seasoned administrator under whose watch such should not be happening.
We thought that the academic environment should be a place to correct societal ills, we bragged about this school and we relaxed because of our confidence in the management, more so because of our JAMB admission letter, we did very great hard work and our studies were full time and not part-time, so we are baffled with the new development of issuing Exclusion letter to us; directly categorizing us as part time. Where and when the story began to change is what we don’t know, you gave us admission as full time students and now after graduation you swiftly change and enlisted our names as part time students, where is that done?
We called on the Nigerian University Commission NUC to please look into these issues and other programs because if this is not well addressed, institutions will continue to exploit innocent students under the pretense of admission offers. This is not acceptable.
Another female student said that she was referred to the FEDPOLY campus from the main campus having given admission letter by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board for a four year full time program but was astonished that the school after graduation enlisted them as part time students.
We are begging the school not to destroy our future; whatever the arrangement it is between the two institutions must not jeopardize our future.
We read, we paid, within these four years and we came to school every day just like every other full time student, part time is five years as I know, I spent four years here and you want to give me a certificate that did not belong to me and with hold the one I am due for? That is fraud in its simple and complex forms.
We are not orange and they should know that they have trained us here to stand for the truth. We were trained and exposed to rigour, hardwork and we enjoyed the study, but for this fraud, we will not take it. The excuses have always been that the Main campus pay less attention to our matters and only see us as another area for the University Hustle, just to make money? Are we ATM Machines?
When contacted on the Phone, the Director AAUA affiliated program FEDPOADO campus said that they were working on resolving the issue and that she had appealed to the students to stay calm.