The Great Life Students’ Union of Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, Ile-Ife, Osun State, has urged students to hold off on paying the N15,000 e-portal access fee until the charge is further clarified.
The union issued the advisory on Monday in a statement signed by its president, Olalekan Kujembola; secretary-general, Abdul Roheem Arogundade; and public relations officer, Isaac Oluwagbami, amid concerns surrounding the charge.
This came after the university’s Division of Student Affairs clarified the matter, explaining that the portal access charge is an existing part of the sundry charges students have paid over the years.
The union said it acknowledged how important a functional and secure electronic portal is to the university’s academic and administrative operations but maintained that students’ access to the platform should not turn into another source of financial burden.
It therefore encouraged students to avoid making the payment for now, until there is further clarification and more developments on the issue.
The statement read, “In view of the concerns surrounding the charge and its implications for students’ access to essential university services, students are hereby advised to refrain from making the N15,000 E-Portal Access payment for the time being, pending further clarification and necessary developments on the matter.”
The union stated that the advisory was guided by the need to make sure decisions about essential student services gave proper weight to affordability, accessibility, and the collective interests of students.
It observed that the university’s e-portal was not an optional digital service but an essential platform for a number of academic activities.
“It is important to emphasize that the university’s e-portal is not merely an optional digital service. It is an indispensable platform through which students undertake critical activities, including school fee payment, course registration, hostel accommodation balloting, and other academic processes,” the statement added.
The union said any financial arrangement linked to access to the platform needed careful thought to keep students from being disadvantaged.
It also encouraged students to stay calm and refrain from spreading unverified reports while they awaited further communication from the union.
“We therefore urge all students to remain calm, exercise patience, and rely on official communications from the Union for further updates. Students are also advised against making decisions based on unverified information or circulating reports,” it said.
Nevertheless, in a separate statement issued on Monday, the Dean of the Division of Student Affairs, Prof. J. A. Odedire, stated that the N15,000 charge was not a new levy but rather an increase to an existing payment of N6,000.
Odedire clarified that the university administration raised the fee in order to enhance the security of its electronic portal and lower the risk of students’ data being compromised.
“The Portal access charge has always been one of the line items of the sundry charges being paid by students over the years. It is not a new charge!” he said.
According to him, the school decided to host the portal in one of the most secure data storage environments to improve its protection.
“In order to ensure a more secure environment for the university e-portal and to reduce the chances of data compromise, the University Administration took the decision to warehouse the portal in one of the most secure environments in the world of data storage, which necessitated a moderate increase of the portal access charge from the previous N6,000 to N15,000,” the statement read.
The dean went on to explain that the new system called for a separate payment gateway, distinct from the Remita electronic payment platform that the university has traditionally used.
He stated that this was the reason the portal access charge was now being paid separately from the other items listed under the sundry charges.
Odedire also gave students, especially those from financially disadvantaged backgrounds, the assurance that the university would not bring in policies that could stand in the way of their education.
“The University Administration is very mindful of the financial ability of some indigent ones among the generality of our students and will not create any condition that will disenfranchise such categories of students in achieving their academic pursuit and dreams,” he added.
