The management of Federal Science and Technical College (FSTC), Orozo, on Nyanya-Karshi Road, has sent final year students of the school away for protesting the poor quality of food offered to them.
Most of the students, whose parents live outside the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and the neighbouring states have made the surrounding bushes their shelter.
Some of them were seen yesterday making frantic efforts to reach their parents and guardians to save them from their ordeal.
When LEADERSHIP visited the school yesterday, the hostile management ordered him out of the premises, saying, “you can publish whatever you like.”
A man purported to be the vice principal in charge of administration ordered the reporter out of his office.
He further threatened to arrest him if he failed to leave the area immediately.
Our correspondent was in the school to get the management’s side of the story.
The ill-treatment of the students had sparked concerns among stakeholders who are mostly teenagers in the age bracket of 14 and 15 years.
Some angry parents had complained that they were not notified on the deboarding of their children.
Eyewitnesses said the school authorities sent all final year boarding students out of the college while they were sitting for their ordinary-level examinations.
Sources said the sudden action was prompted by the school management’s inability to provide security and feeding for the students.
One of the sources said, “It has almost become an annual ritual for students in these classes to fight each other over fagging and seniority brutality.
“Final year students from states outside the FCT who are without guardians are forced to hang around the villages with a high risk of falling into the hands of miscreants and other criminals.
“Parents had paid for the feeding and accommodation of these children, so deboarding them had forced them to look for places to eat and sleep. Considering that they are mostly 14 and 15-year-olds, if they get into the hands of criminals since they have not finished their examinations, the fate their parents prayed for may become distorted,” the source lamented.
When our correspondent visited the school at 11:50 am yesterday, he was referred to the office of the vice principal for administration.
At the office, a man in his 50s ordered him to discontinue his inquiries to avoid being arrested for trespassing and disrupting the school activities.
He asked our correspondent to leave his office immediately or go to the Federal Ministry of Education, as they were not allowed to talk to the press.
Despite his pleas to hear the school’s side of the story, he was asked to “publish whatever you like.”
“I will order for your arrest if that’s what you are here for. Go to the Ministry of Education and ask them whatever you want to get about our school,” he said.
After this encounter, he walked out of the office.
Before the incident, our reporter had sent WhatsApp messages and made phone calls to the school’s vice principal on special duties without any response.