By: Ibraheem Fiyinfoluwa
Most students of the University of Ibadan woke up to find a plethora of emails about the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) and other matters in their school mail inbox, which they had not initially indicated interest in.
The unsolicited messages, which are advertising and promoting various things, are reaching various students due to a loophole in an email that the school management had initially sent to students on August 15 about the NELFUND interactive session with University of Ibadan students.
In order to reach the student populace, the management merged the student emails of returning students into a single email address. However, if anyone replies to the mail by management, it automatically sends that reply to all the mails merged to form the recipient address used by management.
Background
The awareness of the issue can be traced to a reply mail that a student sent to the management’s mail about the interactive session at 3:00 a.m. on Sunday, September 1, 2024.
The student erroneously thought that he was communicating with the loan authority to terminate his application for the loan scheme.
“I am not interested in nelfund student loan, and I am so sorry that this decision is made in late time. Kindly help terminate the process. Best regards!” read his reply.
His reply was, however, sent to all the e-mail addresses that management had merged together to send their own initial mail about the NELFUND interactive session.
After most of the student populace received the mail, some students also began replying and expressing their disinterest in the reception of the mails that they were receiving.
However, some students began to use the loophole for their own purposes to advertise services and goods, making students mail more of a group chat while receiving unsolicited messages.
This large influx of messages on the students mail has also been giving rise to various speculations, such as that the school mail system has been compromised, with even some broadcast messages on WhatsApp erroneously stating that the university has created a Google group for student loan applicants
“I am only trying to help”
One of the broadcasts seen on the mail group was one advertising the NELFUND Scheme and asking interested students to fill a Google form if their application were still pending or just verified.
UCJUI contacted the sender of that mail, a prominent 400-level student, she claimed that her sending the mail was due to the fact that she was only trying to help, following that some students were confused about the loan scheme and needed money for their fees.
She also noted that, like other students, she discovered the loophole but was advised to use it to reach students since her broadcast was a topic of interest to most.
“I’m only trying to help the way I can. I can’t possibly pay the fees for thousands of students. And considering that we have only a few weeks to pay the fees and NELFUND applications and verifications typically take longer than that, this is literally me trying to help. The responses I get will be sent to NELFUND. I’m not using it for anything personal,” she said.
UCJUI also observed the advertisement of peanuts and chin chin on this mail thread.“ As UI don dash us free group.. make una come buy peanut and chin chin for exam preparation o. I sell in different sizes and flavors. You would really love it,” the advert reads.
As of press time, the mail spamming is still fully in operation.
