Commissioner expels 5 students protesting fees hike

Five students of Akwa Ibom School of Health
Technology in Etinan, have been expelled by the
Commissioner for Health, Dr Dominic Ukpong.
The students were on Wednesday invited by the
commissioner for discussion over the lingering crisis
in the school caused by hike in tuition fees.
The leader of the students, Joe Friday, disclosed that
the commissioner invited them to his office for
dialogue.
He said that they were surprised that instead of
dialoguing with them, Ukpong asked them to sign an
undertaking not to further participate in protest over
the hike in tuition fees.
Friday added that when they refused to sign the
undertaking, Ukpong said that it was an insult on his
person and the ministry and told them they had been
expelled from the school.
He said: "the issue is that we wanted the school fees
to be reduced.
"The Commissioner asked us to come for dialogue;
but when we got to his office, we discovered that we
were invited for another thing, not for dialogue on
increase in school fees.
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"We were asked to sign an undertaking that we were
not going to cause trouble in the school if we should
be allowed to remain in the institution.
"When we refused to sign the undertaking, the
Commissioner said we were insolent and stood
rusticated from the school.
"The news of our rustication was even broadcast in
the state’s owned radio station, Akwa Ibom
Broadcasting Corporation (AKBC) on Wednesday."
Friday listed the other students affected by the
action to include, Ekanem Ezekiel, Ekanem Okon,
Ekpo Inyang and Paul Emmanuel.
He explained that the under the new fees, fresh
students (indigenes) would pay N74,000 as against
N36,850 while non-indigenes were charged N81,300
as also against N36,850.
He said that returning students are to pay N41,500 as
against N13,350 before the increase.
When contacted, the Commissioner said that the
media had no right to call him directly to talk on the
issue.
He said, "Did you get this from my information
officer?
"Talk to my information officer. You can’t call me
directly and begin to talk to me."