The University of Ibadan Students’ Union has warned students against making payments through unverified channels after freshers from the department of Microbiology were targeted in a suspected payment scam. In a statement released April 9 via the Students’ Union President’s WhatsApp status, Temidayo Adeboye urged students to verify all payment requests through official university portals.
These statements were issued following unfortunate reports of fraudulent activity targeted at freshers of the university’s Microbiology department. In a screenshot attached to the official circular, a message containing the procedures for making payment, addressed to one “2025/2026 Microbiology Fresher’s group”, was sent to the email addresses of the victims. The email appeared to come from a legitimate ‘admin’ account. The message included fake account details (account name “UI/DLC Remita”, account number 100119013) and instructed students to pay their fees into it.
The Students’ Union President, Temidayo Adeboye, urged students to follow guidelines aimed at verifying payment channels to prevent the recurrence of such unfortunate events. “All official school fee payments must only be made through the university-approved payment channels on the school portal. The university will not request payment through unofficial emails or random account details,” the president said in the WhatsApp address released on Thursday.
The Union then advised students to:
- Avoid clicking suspicious links or making transfers to unknown accounts
- Ignore such messages and refrain from sharing them, and report suspicious messages to relevant authorities.
- Make payments through university-approved payment channels on the student portal
This development comes in the wake of recent news of a data leak/cybersecurity breach that hit Remita. Massive amounts of data, including personal details, bank statements and other sensitive information, were said to have been leaked on a popular cybercrime forum. Neither the administration nor the payment platform has made any comments regarding this development.
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