The Federal Government has begun moves to resolve the crisis rocking the Federal Polytechnic, Ado Ekiti with the setting up of a fact-finding/reconciliation committee.
The committee has been charged with unraveling the issues behind the crisis.
Also the various workers’ unions in the school have demanded fairness from the committee to ensure lasting peace in the institution.
The Rector of the institution, Dr. Theresa Akande, and the various workers’ unions had been at loggerheads for sometime.
The unions are the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Polytechnics and Non-Academic Staff Union.
They had during the crisis accused Akande of diverting N350 million workers’ cooperative deductions.
They also accused the Rector of highhandedness, corruption, double-standard and gross abuse of office, demanding that she should be removed from the office immediately for peace to be restored.
But the Rector had at various times denied the allegations.
The committee, led by the representative of its Chairman, Olu Nipede, in company with Akande during courtesy visits on the Ewi of Ado Ekiti, Oba Rufus Adeyemo, and the Commissioner of Police, Etop James, said the primary objective of the committee as set up by the immediate past Minister of Education, Alhaji Ibrahim Shekarau, was geared towards resolving the crisis between the Rector and the unions and to rescue the polytechnic from destruction.
Nipede said: “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.”
At a joint press conference, the Chairmen of SAANIP and ASUP, Dr. Ayeni Oluwole and Tunji Owoeye, urged the panel to maintain neutrality and ensure that the outcome of its recommendations must go a long way at finding solutions to the crisis.
According to them, an eight-page memorandum attached with 60 documents had been presented to the panel to substantiate their allegations of financial recklessness made against Akande.
Ayeni, however, said the unions had no ill-feelings over the constitution of the investigative panel, describing the members as men of impeccable characters, who cannot be used or bribed to write biased reports over the lingering crisis.
Ayeni said: “They should ensure that whatever they write should be able to stand the test of time.
“It should be report that cannot be rubbished by anybody on the basis of being biased.
“We have confidence in the members and they have to justify this.
“The regime of President Muhammadu Buhari has promised to get rid of the rots that have permeated and pervaded the education sector.
“To achieve this, the NBTE must reposition itself.
“It must erect checks and balances to prevent the impunity and recklessness of these
Rectors.”
Speaking in the same vein, the ASUP chairman added that the panel must come up with recommendations capable of promoting peace, failing which they would take their case to National Assembly for redress.
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