Kingdom universities could be deported home this week except their fees
are settled, according to The Telegraph of London.
The students are said to be sponsored by a regional agency and some of
them are saddled with debts of up to £20,000. Why is the agency not
doing the needful?
The name of the sponsor agency was not given in the report. The report
described the students as “some of the Nigeria’s brightest
undergraduates.”
In fact, the Nigerian students have been told they will not receive
their degree certification even though many of them completed their
courses in the last academic year.
The Telegraph said some of the affected students claimed they have been warned they could be deported by Friday, October 20.
It said the Nigerian High Commission in London confirmed that 152
students had been caught up in the saga, and the sponsor agency had been
left with a “drought of funding” due to a slump in Nigeria’s oil
revenues.
The High Commission said in a statement that additional funding had been approved for 87 students.
There was no mention of how soon the bill would be paid.
The universities of Leeds and Essex said they “sympathised” with the
affected students but declined to say whether their visas would be
revoked.
They said that they were working closely with the Nigerian High Commission to resolve the dispute.
The University of Sussex claimed it had allowed one student to graduate,
but declined to comment on whether their transcript had been withheld.
