From Abdulrazaq Mungadi, Gombe
The Government of Gombe State has announced that it has set up a committee to investigate the alleged lack of sufficient food and feeding at Government Science Secondary School (GSSS).
Hundreds of students of GSSS, one of the oldest boarding secondary schools in the state, had on Monday protested the lack of sufficient food and feeding at the school.
The students with placards and fresh leaves trekked from the school premises at Jekadafari in the metropolis to the state’s Ministry of Education, around the Government Reserved Area (GRA), to register their grievances, including the snatching of phones by security officers and diversion of meals meant for students.
Speaking to reporters in Gombe, Information Officer (IO) of the Ministry of Education, Saidu Bappah Malala, said that the committee was given three days to submit a report of its findings to the commissioner.
‘We were together with the commissioner this morning when we heard about the protest we rushed back to the ministry before his arrival to the ministry the students have already left,’ Malala said.
‘However, the commissioner followed them to the school and immediately inaugurated a kind of committee that will investigate the real cause of the protest.
‘When we met some of the students, they said some of their belongings were being stolen, that security officials were snatching their phones.’
The students, who were chanting “we are not doing, we are not interested,” a video of which went viral on social media, lamented ill-treatment by school authorities.
An unidentified student said: ‘We came out to protest because our foods (provisions) are being snatched away from us and the food we are being served is insufficient.
‘Yes, the government do provide food for us in school but is not enough and even the ones they served are being snatched away from us.
‘We were told that, the school authorities have given the security men the authority to snatch our food from us,’ the schoolboy claimed.