21 students from Bayelsa who are on scholarship in the US, are begging the state government to save them from expulsion.

The students are about to be expelled from the Lincoln University Pennsylvania, USA, because of unpaid fees. What is most disturbing is that they have just one appealed to the government to immediately initiate payment process to avoid jeopardising their continued stay in the institution.

Akpos Akins is one of the students. On a telephone interview on Tuesday 11th of April, he  said the school authorities are saying the outstanding fees are at about about $970, 000.00 (about N300m). According to Akins, the last time the fees payment was regular, they were in their first session.

Even their parents back in Nigeria have tried everything to make the government pay up, to no avail.

While the good intentions of the state government can not be brushed aside, Akins still appealed to the Governor to come to their rescue.

He said that the management of Lincoln University had been very good to them despite the failure of the government to meet up with payment for some time.

Akins said:

“We appeared to have become a source of burden to the management. We are very worried and disturbed.

“We have been given three weeks to pay up before the school’s management takes action. And without our Transcript, we cannot proceed with Industrial Training known as OPT or go to graduate school.

“The management is then obligated to report us for deportation seeing we have no further business in the country.

“Our time and efforts would have been wasted if that happened. We want to be seen as worthy ambassadors of Bayelsa state. We are going through psychological trauma now; we cannot even focus on our studies.”

We genuinely hope the government of Bayelsa state intervenes as quickly as possible.