Jigawa: Medical students protest non-issuance of operation licenses

No fewer than 74 students of the Rawafid International College of Health Technology, Dutse in Jigawa have called on the Jigawa State Ministry of Health and the Board and Medical Lab Council of Nigeria to investigate the management of the college over the non-issuance of their operation licenses after allegedly collecting the sum of over N5.4 million from the students.

The students made the call through Student Union Government (SUG) president of the institute, Comrade Idris Abdullahi while speaking to the news, that the students have protested against their school authority for being insensitive to their plight for withholding their operating licenses two years after graduation.

Comrade Idris Abdullatif told the newsmen that the school sent them to Zaria, in Kaduna State, for induction, however, they were denied license and induction for no specific reason despite paying over N70,000 induction fees.

According to him “The school scheduled our induction on the 19 of December, and asked us to assemble in Dutse, for the induction, after coming to Dutse, they asked us to go to Zaria, for the induction. Some of us came from Borno, Gombe, Bauchi and Plateau states”.

He added; “After the sudden change of the induction venue from Dutse to Zaria, some of us can’t afford the transportation fare they have to borrow because we have exhausted our budgets. While at the induction ceremony in Zaria, we were asked to pay N3,000 each for the induction gowns, it was at the induction ceremony all of us we from Jigawa were asked to stay away and we were not part of the induction”.

The student union president disclosed further; “We were badly embarrassed at the venue of the induction ceremony. When we called our school provost severally to inform him about the situation, his phone was switched off, we were helpless and returned disappointed to Dutse, and we couldn’t find him, this is how we came back disappointed without an operating license as certified medical lab scientists.

“As you can see us here now, we are stranded in Dutse without transport money to return to their respective states and they are pleading with the authorities to come to their help,” Abdullahi emphasised.

When contacted through his mobile phone the school’s provost, a privately owned institution, Mustapha Al-Amin acknowledged the delay and assured that all the protesting students would get their license next year in January

“They were supposed to be inducted last year, we wrote to the board and Medical Lab Council of Nigeria and agreed to induct all of them (74 people).

“We posted the students to Zaria to take their oath of induction. The person in charge of the licensing from Zaria called me and begged that the license for the students would be ready in January.

“The comprehensive list of the students that were supposed to be inducted was with one official who, unfortunately, is on annual leave. That is what caused the delay.

“In the first week of January, we will process the licenses and give them to the students,” the college provost said.

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