Kogi House of Assembly on Thursday invited all heads of tertiary institutions in the state to appear before it on allegations of massive extortion of students under their management.The resolution followed a motion moved at the House plenary by Lawi Ahmed (PDP-Okene 1) accusing heads of the institutions of connivance with their lecturers in the extortion game on students.
He told his colleagues that the students were forced to buy some unrecognised educational materials under threat of failure.
The legislator said such antiques ran contrary to the operational rules of the institutions which are charged with providing needed environment for students to develop in character and learning for which they are awarded certificates at the end of their various programmes.
Moving the motion, he expressed regrets that the institutions had been turned into “extortion grounds where lecturers take advantage of their positions to intimidate and extort money from hapless students’’.
Ahmed noted that the lecturers indiscriminately sold illegally published books without ISBN numbers to students under coercion in lieu of “Continuous Assessment” tests and assignments.
“The lecturers in most cases, threaten students with failure or carryover of their courses if they fail to comply by purchasing the illegal materials.
“Some lecturers even go to the extent of sexually harassing female students in addition to receiving monetary incentives from them,’’ he said.
According to him, the action of some lecturers has made majority of students to indulge in “ungodly acts’’ to raise funds to buy the books while some self-sponsored students get distracted in the process and drop out.
The motion, seconded by Edoko Moses Ododo (APC-Dekina-Biraidu), received unanimous support of members when the Speaker Alhaji Umar Imam put it to a voice vote and was adopted.
Imam mandated the House Standing Committee on Education to invite the management of the institutions to have an interface with it at the committee level.
