… As Hundreds Of Students Face Withdrawal
Unpalatable reports from the Rivers State University (RSU), Nkpolu-Oroworukwu, Port Harcourt have it that large sums running into hundreds of millions of naira may have been lost following the hacking of the schools payment portal by some suspected internet thieves.
The development, National Network gathered has also aggravated the situation for hundreds of students who may be forced to withdraw from the university following alarming discovery that they made payment on the online portal allegedly using fraudulent pins.
National Network gathered that the case of the affected students have been made worse by a directive from the university’s management for such fees to be repaid on or before November 29, 2019.
Our source said after routine audit on payment last week, management directed that online page of hundreds of students who were accused of using fraudulent pin to make payments ranging from medical, tuition, acceptance, hostel, certificate verification fees among others be blocked.
In one of the blocked pages sighted by our reporter, the University management listed the two alleged fraudulent pins used by the student to make medical and certificate verification payment.
Checks by National Network show that some affected students were to re-pay tuition fees of three years, some certificate verification fee while some medical fees as a result of alleged use of fake pins used in making initial payments.
In the meantime, some students who spoke to us on condition of anonymity claimed that they made payments at business centres around the school campus and the University Information and Communications Technology Centre (ICT) sold the pins to the approved registration centre The students explained that for instance, if tuition is forty thousand naira, they pay forty one thousand to the business centres operators. They said the additional money is the fee charged by the business operators as their service fees.
The students argued that if the pins were fake, how come the business centres operators printed out the original payment receipt and issued to them. According to the students, it will almost be practically impossible to print out authentic epayment receipts from the school portal using fraudulent pins.
Some parents who spoke to National Network urged the Rivers State Government to wade into the matter with a view to ascertaining the remote and immediate cause of the issue.
The parents in a chat with our reporter explained that the burden on them is much as some of their children are required to re-pay up to two hundred thousand naira and above. The parents described the situation as pathetic.
Efforts to hear from the University authorities did not yield result as Sydney Eyindah, the School Registrar did not respond to several text messages sent to his mobile line by National Network as at press time.
