Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti (EKSU) is presently swimming in the pool of over N2 billion fraud, with the university management demanding fresh payment from over 500 students who allegedly paid their school fees through the school payment portal.
Globalgistng reports that at the center of the alleged fraud are one Mayowa Sunday, who works in the Bursary Department and two top professors who are close allies of the Vice Chancellor, Prof Eddy Olanipekun.
Apart from the portal charges, which students were made to pay in addition to their fees and allegedly shared by some top functionaries of the University, records of payment of over 500 students who paid their school fees through the portal cannot be found in the bursary department.
As at November 2019, a memo from the Chief Security Officer, Captain A. S. Ajayi (Rtd), to the Vice Chancellor, dated November 22, 2019, put number of students whose payments were not be found in the school records at 135.
“The Dean Students’ Affairs and I met you in the evening of yesterday, November 21, 2019 and raised the issue on the fate of one hundred and thirty students who paid their school fees through Oladimeji Olasunkanmi ‘SK’ Cyber Cafe. We made a plea that the affected students be allowed to write the second semester examination because of the shortness of time and you asked me to go and bring a memo to that effect for your approval.
“We will vigorously pursue the case, which is currently with the Department of State Service, to ensure that all those involved in the massive fraud are made to refund every kobo that have been collected from the students.
“As at today, five (5) additional students have reported to our office making the total number of victims to be one hundred and thirty five (135) students. The broad list and the one arranged according to their faculty with their departments indicated are hereby attached,” memo by Captain Ajayi (Rtd) read.
Close to one year after the university’s Chief Security Officer, wrote the memo stating the names and departments of the 135 students affected by the scam, none of culprits have been brought to book.
Not only that number of affected students have increased to more than 500, the University management is now demanding fresh payment from the students.
Sources confided in WazobiaReporters that many of the students had to pay cash to Mayowa Sunday, who in turn generated online receipts for them.
The receipts were to be found to be fake.
“The scam was in three folds.
“Because of difficulty in accessing the payment portal, some students gave cash to Mayowa, who has direct access to the portal being a staff of the bursary department.
“He generated fake receipts after collecting cash from the students.
“Some of the students also paid through SK Cyber Cafe, owned by one Oladimeji Olasunkanmi and the payments did not reflect in the school account. The Cyber Cafe is said to be owned by Mayowa Sunday, and for that, the cafe had unlimited access to the University Portal.
“Thirdly, charges made on payments on the portal were allegedly shared by top functionaries of the University. The charges allegedly run into millions of Naira.
“Mayowa developed the ICT Software for the online payment. He connived with some top staff of the University, hence on every payment, some cut are programmed to go to his account.
“Instead of holding their staff who committed the fraud, the University is asking the students to repay the fees despite that they have online receipts generated for them by staff of the bursary department,” source told our reporter.
