The government has restructured the Abia State Polytechnic to enthrone peace in the crisis-ridden Institution. Will this peace endure? SUNNY NWANKWO reports.
FOR a long time, the 25-year-old Abia State Polytechnic in Aba was crisis-ridden.
But with the restructuring embarked upon by the government, peace is gradually returning to the institution.
The government sacked the management and Governing Council for alleged mismanagement.
The workers hailed the government’s move.
In a move to sanitise its operation, the government ordered an overhaul of the institution, including verification of workers’ credentials.
The Nation learnt that in 2006, some workers were involved in employment racketeering. Cronies and family members of some government officials were allegedly hired without following due process. A committee inaugurated to probe the allegation of ghost workers recommended a staff audit. But this was not implemented.
A source at the institution, told our correspondent that the rate of employment between 2007 and 2015 was so high that some departments were bloated.
So far, the management has sacked about 15 workers for certificate fraud. It has also forwarded over 500 workers’ school certificates to the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) for verification.
Besides, the credentials of higher degree holders are also scrutinised.
Another 12 are still standing on one leg. A source told The Nation that WAEC’s comments on the credentials of the affected staff were not too specific. Those credentials have since been returned to the exam body for further clarifications.
Before the Governor Okezie Ikpeazu’s administration came in May 2015, union leaders, management and the government were always bickering, resulting in industrial actions and interruptions of academic activities.
The crisis reached a climax during Ikpeazu’s predecessor, Theodore Ahamefule Orji’s tenure. This forced the former governor to direct the past Acting Rector, Elder Allwell Onukaogu, to proceed on a six-month terminal leave. The former management board led by former House of Assembly Speaker Christopher Enweremadu was sacked and another headed by Chief Chuku Wachuku replaced it.
Wachuku’s administration was, however, short-lived. In the wake of the resurgence of industrial action last December, Wachuku’s tenure was axed by Ikpeazu for alleged misappropriation and non-payment of workers’salaries.
Also, the government directed the Rector, Prof Martin Ifeanacho ,and Registrar Dr Constance Evuline to go on a six-month compulsory leave. Prof Ezinoye Eboh is now the Acting Rector.
With the gradual payment of workers’ salaries, calm has since returned to the institution. Nonetheless, the leadership of workers and Students’ Union said the change effected by Ikpeazu was not enough since there had been series of change of administration in the past. What workers want is an all-inclusive governance, The Nation learnt.
It is on record that between 2014 and this year, the institution has been led by four rectors – Professors Ikonne, Onyekwere Okpara, Martin Ifeanacho and Eboh.
Workers union: we have been brutalised
Chairman, Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Polytechnic, Abia State Chapter and the Vice Chairman of Joint Action Committee of the three unions in the institution, Comrade Nwachukwu Chuks, lamented that workers had been bruised with their unpaid seven months salary.
“We appreciate Governor Okezie Ikpeazu for sacking the Council and the management,” Nwachukwu said.
“The governor through the Paris Club Fund allocated N180 million to Abia Poly but the issue still remains that Abia Poly is being owed seven months salary between July 2016 and January 2017. Under that economic pressure, you cannot order workers to come to work. That is what gave rise to truancy.
“The workers don’t have the means of transporting themselves. They are hungry, they have been brutalised by their landlords and their creditors. So, such brutalised workforce cannot give their best.
“The school is being run under two financial umbrella, subvention from the state government and the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). As it stands now, the government subvents this polytechnic to the tune of N90 million per month and as we speak, the government has not been able to release its subvention in the last 10 months. Currently, our wage bill is within the neighbourhood of N163 million gross and if you multiply N90 million by 10, that will give you almost N900 milion. If you split that into six, you will see that we can get at least, six months’ salary that is in government custody.
“In putting things into proper perspective, the IGR is a function of the number of students that we have in our admission roll. Our student population used to be about 25, 000 students, but it has dropped to less than 15, 000 and with a salary burden of N163million per month, there is no way this school can sustain itself from IGR without the government making up their own part of the bargain.
“The government should equip the new management and give them the financial backing to set off some months of salary arrears to enable him (new rector) to see how he can engage the workers in discussing the way forward. But for him to say that workers should come back to work through an executive fiat, that might not yield any fruit.”
Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), Abia Poly chapter, Comrade Precious Nwakodo, and his predecessor Umah Godswill, at various interviews, accused past management of the institution of failing to act on the promises made to them during various meetings held.
Recalling the event of last year, Nwakodo said: “I remember there was a time the union wanted to meet with the Governing Council and we sent notices that we would be meeting with them to know what they were doing about our salaries. The next thing we heard on the radio is that the institution has been shutdown, wishing us merry Christmas. Because of that, we said since the school has been shutdown, nobody would enter the school to sit for any meeting and collect Sitting Allowance.
SU President: strike has extended our stay
But for the strike, many of the students, particularly, the final year would have graduated.
One of such victims is the SU President Comrade Chigbu Uchechukwu, who described the scenario as ‘unfortunate’.
He said: “The strike has affected the students negatively because by now, they are supposed to be waiting for their exams. I’m not supposed to have continued as the SUG President. I’m supposed to have handed over, but because of the strike, I am still in school. We can’t even go for service (NYSC), we are all here frustrated and to add to it, some of the union leaders are even embarrassing the students. We are peace-loving people but anytime they push us to the wall, we might be forced to do what is not right.
“The leadership of the National Association of Nigerian Students headed by Comrade Haruna Kadiri was here and they have given the government and unions two weeks to resume academic activities. We are calling on the state government and workers to listen to the call of the leadership of NANS. Abia Poly students are the most peaceful students in this country. But if in the end nothing was done, NANS will storm here to do the needful.”
Finance Commisioner: Abia Poly is paying for past ‘sins’
Addressing reporters, Abia State Commissioner of Finance Mr. Obinna Oriaku, said the institution was paying for its past sins.
He lamented that successive administrators of the institution employed staff without due process, culminating in a heavy wage bill that its lean IGR and the government’s subvention are finding difficult to meet.
Oriaku noted that the change the government was introducing had become necessary, adding that more changes would still be effected.
He said: “What Abia Poly is passing through is as a result of things that happened in the last 20 years when the management decided to do things the way they liked. You know, it is not the time you cut a tree that it will die; it takes times, now it has gotten to that stage where all those things that were done in the past had come to hurt the institution.
“This is an institution that is just 25 years old, their wage bill in a month is N180 million, but the Abia State University with the number of professors it has and the number of years it has existed, their wage bill still averages N140 million with even a less student population.
“When we came in, we noticed that they (Abia Poly) took a loan of N2 billion from a prominent bank, and they were paying the bank N75 million monthly. Then we wondered, how can this institution that is not into importation of stockfish be paying a bank N75 million and still be able to raise revenue to pay salary? So, the government took over the loan and directed them to use the IGR to pay salary while we pay the loan.
“We also discovered that Abia Poly has 44 accounts in more than 23 banks. We later set up structures and streamlined all those accounts into one collecting bank. Every student now pays through the portal but before now, students were paying school fees in cash or through banks tellers where people also forged tellers. As at the last meeting, we heard from the management, there were about nine accounts that had yet to been uploaded into that single account.
“Abia Poly has 99 gate men while 40 people work in its Library. It has almost 50 people in their medical unit with the matrons and doctors. That is just recklessness on the part of people who presided over that institution over the years. Their workforce is 12,000 and over 800 are senior staff which means the top is very heavy.”
Management: we shall plug loopholes
Eboh has promised to offset workers’ arrears and plug all leakages.
In an interview with The Nation in his office, he said efforts were on to ensure that accumulated salaries were paid off. The process for the payment of August and September salaries were almost completed, Eboh disclosed.
Thanking Ikpeazu for releasing funds which have enabled the institution to pay a part of the arrears, Eboh said his administration was working to improve its monthly IGR so that management would rely less on government subventions which seldom come.
According to him, the era of paying salaries to ghost workers which was synonymous with the previous administrations has gone, adding that management has now introduced mechanism to checkmate paying phony workers.
“I shared with the unions in a number of meetings within the past couple of weeks. That is why we do not relent and would not relent in asking the government for more. We must work on our internal mechanisms to shore up the IGR to avoid leakages, and waste of scare resources.
“We have started paying the workers their arrears to ensure that we fulfill the promise; but we realised that there are things that we have to cross-check. That is some kind of internal audit and that is why we decided to write cheques rather than paying it into their bank accounts.
“As for the leakages, I can assure you that we have the courage to do what is needful. The much I can tell you is that there is a holistic restructuring that is going and by the end of the day, I am sure that you will be back here to applaud our efforts.
“The staff welfare is our priority and by the time we finish with what we are doing, never again will the ugly history of the past repeat itself in Abia Poly. We have to set the system running, so that even for any reason the government is encumbered by other responsibilities, this institution can go far before the government comes in,” he said.
