The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has passed a vote of no confidence on the rector of DS Adegbenro ICT Polytechnic, Itori in Ogun state, Prof Olufemi Fatade, due to his alleged plans to increase tuition fee and introduce other charges in the state-owned institution.
The student body called on Gov Dapo Abiodun to probe the rector and send him on compulsory leave; saying “students and majority of the staff aren’t confident of having him continued as the rector of that school.”
NANS last week raised the alarm that the management of DS Adegbenro ICT Polytechnic, Itori, Ogun state, was allegedly making secret moves to increase tuition fees and to extort students through the introduction of other ‘illegal’ charges.
But, the management of the polytechnic told journalists that adding N5,000 to the tuition fees became necessary if the institution was to maintain its existence.
The registrar, Mr Bayo Ogundimu, told journalists that the polytechnic had, after considering a lot of factors sent a letter to government, requesting for the upward review of tuition fees. He, however, said the request had not been granted.
Ogundimu revealed that the polytechnic had been self-sustaining in a way, since its creation in 2006; saying it gets N5m monthly subvention from government and it has to pay salaries of staff.
According to him, lecturers of the institution are being owed four months salaries. This, he said, was as a result of lack of funds as “the wage bill alone is about N27m monthly.”
However, a statement signed by NANS Spokesperson, Azeez Adeyemi Wednesday reads:
“Our attention has been called to abnormalities and extortion at DS Adegebro ICT Polytechnic, Itori in Abeokuta, the Ogun state capital, as we call on the state government under, Prince Dapo Abiodun to give an holistic view into issues in the institution especially as it concerns multiple payment of some fees, hence, extorting our students.
“It is also important that the government investigate how money is being spent in the institution.
“From our findings as students’ leaders, we discovered that the management of the institution has perpetrated different degrees of financial crimes at the expense of the students/children of the poor schooling in that institution.
“Our further findings also showed that both staff and students of that institution who constitutes the largest population of the polytechnic are not happy with the many multiple payments being forced on the students among other few maltreatments meted on the members of staff who could not speak in the interest of their job security.”
After numerous complaints on the leadership style of the rector among other various issues, the students gave the following demands:
“That the compulsory N15,000 penalty for late file submission should be scrapped immediately; that status quo should remain on the amount of the tuition, cancelling the proposed N5000 increment and cancellation of the needless N12,000 sundry fee.