Unity School starves students for non-payment of insurance levy

Ogbonnaya Ikokwu, Umuahia

The Federal Government College, Okigwe has been accused of starving some of the students of food since January 6, 2018 for failing to pay N5,000 insurance levy.

A parent of two of the affected student, Mr.Martins Nwokedi, stated this while addressing journalists in Umuahia, the Abia state capital saying the action of the college was both illegal and inhuman.

He said his children were not indebted to the college of any fees, saying that they had paid all the statutory levies.

He also accused the school of withholding their promotional examination results for last academic year.

He said the payment was optional just as “The National Parents And Teachers Association of Federal Unity Secondary Schools has petitioned President Muhammadu Buhari over it.”

In support of his claim, Nwokedi, who is a staff of Federal Government College (FGC), Umuahia brandished the petition which was written by his counsel, Chief Chibuike Nwokeukwu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria.

The petition read in part, “In Re: Illegal and unauthorized imposition of insurance levy on students of the 104 Unity Schools in Nigeria an act likely to cause a breach of the peace and break down of law and order.

“As a parent, I am deeply concerned about the condition of the students, who by no fault of their’s have been made to go through such agonizing experience.”

Nwokedi maintained that he was also disturbed by the fate of those ones that come from “outside this part of the country and what their parents would be thinking about the college”.

According to him, every effort and appeal to the Principal and the Vice Principal, Students Affairs, Mrs. Rose Ihezue and Mr. Iroegbu Udoka respectively, had proved abortive.

When asked how the children had been managing to survive, the distraught father and senior Mathematics teacher said,”On their beverages. Sometimes, I take food to them in person.”

When contacted for reaction, the management staff of the college stood behind the principal and the vice principal, calling the journalists names including meddlesome interlopers.

They literarily drove the journalists away from the conference hall of the college, telling them to go ahead with their reports.

source http://punchng.com/unity-school-starves-students-for-non-payment-of-insurance-levy/