A House of Representatives hopeful in Taraba State, Amb.Tony Horsfall Mai-tractor has frowned at the University Management of Taraba State University for the withdrawal of close to 2000 students, for their inability to pay their second semester school fees of 35000, barely one month after resumption.
It would be recalled, that the Vice-chancellor of Taraba State University Prof. Vincent Ado Tenebe, popularly called ‘T-Value’ on had earlier this week, dismissed 1,680 undergraduate students of the University for their failure to meet up with the University’s June 29th deadline for payment of the second semester school fees. Though pressures from Parents have made the Vice Chancellor extend an additional one week, after which students who haven’t paid their school fees by then, would be made to defer; Amb. Horsfall said this wasn’t supposed to be.
The 26 year old Youth & Civil Society Activist, who aspires to represent the Karim-Lamido, Lau and Ardo-kola Federal Constituency by 2019, in the Nigerian House of Representatives, made this reaction in a statement issued to News Men in Ardo-kola, where the University is situated, yesterday. The statement read in part as:
‘I am distraught and shocked to return from the Political Organising round table for Young Aspiring Parliamentarians with Young Parliamentarians of the National Assembly, organised by the YIAGA Africa’s Ready to Run Movement and it’s Center for Legislative Engagement in Abuja, only to be greeted with the news of the Vice-Chancellor withdrawing over a thousand Nigerian Students for their inability to pay the second semester tuition fees, barely after a month, from which the school resumed’. Ours is a Nation and State of resident callousness and disregard for the citizenry, Amb.Horsfall said.
‘My father’s Generation are not even remorseful. These were a people who were not only absolved of paying any fees whatsoever, all through their educational life, but were also given free transportation money, free meal tickets, free pocket Money, free laundry service and free everything. It beats Me hollow, that today, instead of feeling sobber, that they have failed to bequeath to My generation, the same Peaceful and prosperous Nigeria, the generation before, handed to them, a Vice-Chancellor Who was a beneficiary of such freebies would today, conveniently sack over a thousand students for their inability to meetup with a stringent deadline’.
‘The University indeed has a notorious, infamous and inglorious history, record and trajectory of always been in the news for payments it has imposed on the Students and is overzealously, and desperately so, wanting same to be paid in no time. For instance, before the wake of the University’s maiden Convocation, January this year, the University had demanded that convocating students pay a whooping twenty seven thousand naira to be convocated. Similarly, Tuition fees in Taraba State University used to be forty-eight thousand nair per session. All of a sudden, there was a dramatic and geometric hike of tuition fees from an already ridiculous forty eight thousand naira to the neighborhood of a skyrocketing seventy thousand naira per session, earlier this year’.
‘All I can infer from the foregoing, is that the Darius Dickson Ishaku’s Administration may be irresponsible with adequately and timely funding the University, which makes the University Management, in a bid to efficiently and effectively run the university, keep gasping for the next available funds that could come to the University’s coffer, and would stop at nothing in withdrawing close to two thousand students for their inability to pay the semester’s tuition, barely a month after resumption’.
‘As a voice for My Generation, and a Crusader for the next, I here by call on Governor Darius Dickson Ishaku to stop Playing Politics with Education and prioritize the adequate and timely Funding of the Taraba State University. I also call on Professor Vincent Ado Tenebe, the Vice- Chancellor, to show remorse for the failure of His Generation to bequeath to Us the Nigeria of Free Education they enjoyed. Though He has given an additional one week extension for registration, the initial withdrawal was an affront on the patience and sensibilities of the Students and their Parents, who were struggling to pay those school fees; and was not suppose to be, since school had just resumed barely a month ago.

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Activist reacts to withdrawal of 1,680 Students from Taraba State University for nonpayment of school fees.