Irate students set Benue school ablaze

Aggrieved final year students of Government Secondary School, Tse-Agberagba in Konshisha Local Government Area of Benue State yesterday set the school ablaze.

Witnesses said the students were aggrieved due to the school’s failure to validate their registration for West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE).

A witness, who preferred anonymity, said the students burnt the administrative block of the school and the inferno ruined valuables including certificates that date back to the 1990s.

The witness narrated that the SS3 students had registered for this year’s WASSCE and their names were published on WAEC’s website.

Trouble was, however, said to have started for them when the school principal, Aliba Stephen Sendeh, went back to the WAEC office and was informed by its management that if the school did not have computers enough for the registered students, the centre would be cancelled and a fine of N1million must be paid by the school authority before the centre would be reopened.

The principal was said to have applied to WAEC to reopen their data so that the registration would be edited but the examination body did not reply on time.

It was learnt that even though the registration was edited and submitted two weeks before WASSCE commenced, the school was later told that it was closed.

The principal, on receiving the information that registration had closed, rushed to WAEC office, where he was given conditions to set up an external examination centre for the affected students to sit for the exam.

The school could not meet the requirements and the Parents Teachers Association (PTA) resolved that the affected students should wait till 2022 to write the exam.

The decision did not go down well with the affected students, who, according to witnesses, resorted to arson.

Council Chairman of Konshisha LGA, James Jirgba, frowned at the level of damage done at the school.

Media Assistant to the Konshisha chairman, Amos Aar, told our correspondent in Makurdi that his boss had called on the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in charge of TseAgberagba Area command to carry out thorough investigation into the incident and fish out the perpetrators.

The school’s Vice Principal (Administration), Mr Sendeh Chiangi Stephen, conducted the council team around the burnt section of the institution.