The fact-finding/reconciliation committee set up by the Federal Government to unravel the crisis rocking the Federal Polytechnic, Ado Ekiti, started work in the state on Monday.
The authorities of the school have been at loggerheads with the Non-Academic Staff Union, Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Polytechnics and the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics over some unpaid allowances and other issues bordering on welfare.
The union particularly accused the Rector, Dr. Theresa Akande, of not remitting about N350m cooperatives funds and deducting pension from contract staff benefits in disregard to laid down rules.
The panel, led by the representative of its Chairman, Mr. Olu Nipede, in company with the Rector, visited the Ewi of Ado Ekiti, Oba Rufus Adejugbe, and the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Etop James, on Monday.
Adejugbe urged members of the panel to ensure that peace returned to the institution.
The monarch noted that the community had appointed Dr. Ibikunle Ogundipe to represent its interest on the committee while the community submitted its findings to the panel.
Nipede said the objective of the committee set up by the immediate past Minister of Education, Alhaji Ibrahim Shekarau, was to resolve the crisis between the Rector and the unions.
He added, “Efforts to find solution to this crisis in the past through interventions from various groups did not yield results. The terms of reference will require interfacing with the rector and the unions and we shall file our reports to the Ministry of Education for necessary actions.”
However, the SAANIP and ASUP’s chairmen , Dr. Oluwole Ayeni, and Tunji Owoeye, respectively, who later spoke to newsmen, urged the panel to maintain neutrality and to seek amicable solutions to the crisis in the institution.
They noted that they had presented an eight-page memorandum attached with a 60-page document to the panel to substantiate their allegations of financial recklessness against the Rector.
Ayeni particularly urged the panel to look into all the allegations with a view to making recommendations that would restore sanity to the institution.
He explained that the unions were encouraged by the determination of President Muhammadu Buhari to tackle the rot in the education sector, saying the probe of the crisis would go a long way in restoring the school’s lost glory.
Owoeye added, “There won’t be peace until the solution is found.”
He queried the continued stay in office of the polytechnic’s Governing Council Chairman, Victor Ebomoyi, whom he claimed did not resign his position before contesting election in Edo State.
“We are surprised that the Council Chairman is still there because he did not resign before going to contest the Edo South senatorial seat and we wonder why President Buhari is still keeping those councils till now because they ought to have been dissolved since they are not statutory commissions,” Owoeye added.
(Punch)
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