Minna ASUU chairman condemns financial hardship induced student drop outs

The branch chairman of ASUU at the Federal University of Technology Minna, Professor Gbolahan Abolarin, has described it as not only unacceptable but also portending grave danger to the country at large if some brilliant but indigent undergraduate students within the university system and across tertiary institutions across the country are allowed to drop out just because they cannot afford to pay the tuition fees or meet their other needs midway into their studies due to their poor backgrounds in the larger society, following the ongoing economic hardships confronting many Nigerians in the lowest ebbs of society.

Professor Abolarin stated this on the sidelines of the presentation of scholarship award certificates to six student beneficiaries of the scholarship awards instituted by both the branch in collaboration with the National body of ASUU at the secretariat of the Union at the Gidan Kwano main campus of the FUTMinna on Monday, in the presence of the National President of the Union, Professor Emmanuel Osolaodeke, in conjunction with some other national officers of the Union, including Professor Stellar Martins, a former national welfare officer of ASUU, among others, who were on the scholarship as an official visit to the University for a very important meeting with the members of the branch in the university.

At the awards certificate presentation to the six lucky students for the scholarship award fashioned after the mode of the Late Chief Gani Fawehinmi Foundation, two of the students won N200,000 scholarship awards each from the national Secretariat of ASUU, and they are Masters Ahmad Shehu Idris and Olagunju Michael Femi, both from the Civil Engineering department at FUTMinna, with Matriculation numbers 2021/1/81394EC and 2021/1/81870EC, while their CGPA at the time of applying for the scholarship awards from FUTMinna, ASUU branch, were 4.66 and 4.68.

The other four students who received the sums of N50,000 each as scholarship awards from the ASUU branch, FUT Minna, include Okuns David Donatus, Egbunu Hassan James, Miss Ajibola Christianah Ololade, and Miss Medina Aneru, respectively.

Speaking further, the ASUU branch chairman, FUTMinna, said the scholarship award was meant for 2023, adding that because of some unforeseen challenges, it had to be postponed until this year.

According to him, “But we are just presenting it now because of the delay in some areas and what have you. It was after presenting in November last year that the NEC of our union approved the nominees. Unfortunately, because of the exams, we couldn’t do the awards in order to assist the students because the concept of this award is to assist truly indigent students, and the committee has been able to do a proper investigation; they interacted with the students, and they scored them.” He did note that what the committee did was that they came up with rankings, adding that those of them that came first and second were recommended for the awards.

Prof. Gbolahan Abolarin stated further that the criteria were from the Gani Fawehinmi Foundation because they must be truly indigent students, stressing that they must have a certain level of CGPA and they must be from 200 levels upward.

“In our own case, the committee wanted to know about the family background of the beneficiaries, emphasising that no fewer than about 68 students applied for the scholarship, out of which only six were selected for the award because of the limited financial status of the union. And we’re glad we are doing it today (Monday).

Again, later in the year, it would come up again, and by this year’s call, we would try to get more students to be beneficiaries because it is out of the little that we have that we are giving the indigent students in our midst.”

He pointed out that it was out of the little resources that they have that they were trying to protect the beneficiaries so that they didn’t end up somewhere else suffering, highlighting that it was not going to be in the interest of Nigeria as a country if the students were not assisted at the end of the day.

“So, this thing we are doing might impact positively on their lives and in our own little way,” he maintained.