Returning Students Of FCE-T, Lagos Still Fume Over Levy, Unresolved Issues, 2 Months After Closure
Students of the Federal College of Education, Technical FCE-T, Akoka Lagos, are still angry with the authorities, threatening a return to protest on the street over unresolved issues and imposition of flat N10,000 levy on each of them, against the background of the riot that led to its closure in August this year.
The school was scheduled to be re-opened for the resumption of academic activities today, November 4.
In a statement today, the Lagos Joint Campus of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) said that it could not guarantee peace on campus without the resolution of issues which forced the institution to shut its doors early August.
The college was shut down when the crisis on leadership, which lingered for over three months, degenerated into violence as some workers and students reportedly attacked the Chairman of the Governing Council, Olatunde Adenuga and other council members, vandalising cars and properties.
NANS complained in the statement, fearing that another fight is looming over the N10,000 levy imposed on all students without identifying and prosecuting the ring leaders among staff and students who destroyed five vehicles and vandalised the official quarters on campus.
“The Lagos State Chapter of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has been made aware of a recent decision by the college management to impose a blanket charge of 10,000 Naira on all students. This fee is said to be in response to damages sustained during the recent upheaval on campus, which stemmed from students’ expressions of their concerns regarding the college’s leadership.
“This development has come as a significant shock and is widely seen as both unfair and insensitive, especially given the current economic climate. Families across Nigeria are grappling with soaring living costs, and many are struggling to afford basic needs, including food and essential supplies.
“As an organization committed to the welfare of Nigerian students, we find this measure to be unacceptable. It not only fails to address the root causes of the unrest but also penalizes all students collectively, irrespective of their involvement or lack thereof in the incident.
“Collective punishment of this nature disregards due process and overlooks the underlying reasons that led to students’ demands and frustrations.
“In light of these concerns, we strongly urge the college management to reconsider and reverse this imposed fee. Failure to take immediate corrective action may leave us with no choice but to initiate a peaceful protest aimed at addressing this injustice and amplifying students’ voices.
“We are hopeful that the management will choose the path of dialogue, empathy, and fairness in resolving this matter,” NANS wrote in a letter issued by Comrade Alimi Lekan Idris and Comrade Abefe Abdulrazak Yusuf, chapter chairman and secretary respectively.
As the crisis in the institution began in July, the Governing Council of the College asked the Provost, Dr. Wahab Ademola Azeez to step aside and appointed Dr. Isaac Miller as the acting provost of the institution.
In an internal memo on August 8, referencing FCE/T/AK/RO/IM/2/206 and signed by the Registrar of the College, Rasheed Dada, the council said that Wahab Azeez should “step down” as the provost effective 31 July.
“This is to inform the College Community that at the inaugural meeting of the 8th Governing Council of the College on Tuesday, 30 July 2024, the Council directed that Wahab Ademola Azeez should step aside from office as the Provost of the College with effect from 31 July 2024, the statement reads in part.
The Council had raised two panels, one to investigate allegations against the provost on maladministration and financial impropriety. The second one, a special committee was mandated to investigate the riot by some students and staff which resulted in the closure of the college.
A circular dated Wednesday, August 7, 2024, and signed by Dada said the 8th governing council at its sitting on July 31 constituted an investigative panel and a committee to probe allegations against some staff and the crisis that engulfed FCE-T.
The 2nd circular titled: “Special Committee of Council to Investigate various allegations against College Management and Staff” had a five-man committee with an external council member as chairman.
The special investigative panel comprised the representatives of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, Attorney General of Lagos State, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, Nigerian Institute of Quality Surveyors, Minister of Education and Chairman, Oluwole Residents Association.
The panel was mandated to look at the remote and immediate causes of the students’ unrest leading to the vandalization of five vehicles, damage to part of provost’s lodge, identify the ring leaders of the students’ crisis, staff, students and outsiders, itemized the damages suffered by the college in the course of the crisis, evaluate cost of replacements of the damaged items and assess the students facilities to be replaced and recommend those to be immediately repaired.
Many students and staff of the college have expressed concern that two months after their inauguration, the findings of the panels are yet to be published. “It is unacceptable to punish all the students when those who participated in the riot were taken to court. Where is the outcome of the police investigation and the panels set up by the college,” Segun Olusola, a second-year student queried?
Protest began at the college on 27 May, 2024, when students, and some staff locked up the office of the Provost of the College and issued him a notice to quit his official residence over his tenure of office.
The protest was organised by the leadership of the Senior Staff Union of Colleges of Education, SSUCOEN, FCET chapter, and other unions who called themselves “concerned staff.”
The protesters insisted that with the amendment of the Educational Colleges Act 2023, which introduced a five-year single term of office for provosts and other principal officers of the colleges, the tenure of Dr Azeez had ended on 26 May.
However, the provost said he was appointed for the first term of four years in 2019 and that having been duly reappointed by the institution’s governing council in 2023, he had resumed his second term in office on 27 May 2023 before the amended act was signed into law on 12 June 2023.
The staff unions asked for clarification on the tenure of office of the provost based on the amended act, and former the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, wrote the unions, affirming the legality of Dr Azeez’s second term of four years.
The protesters ignored
the minister’s verdict and continued to stage daily protests on the campus, denying management members access to their offices even after the former Minister of State for Education, Yusuf Sununu met with the warring parties in Abuja to reach an amicable settlement.
Despite signing resolutions reached at a reconciliatory meeting chaired by Sununu, some workers of FCET continued to threaten a showdown should Dr Azeez return to the office.
The resolutions signed by the representatives of the ministry, the governing council, and the staff unions included the reopening of the office of the college’s provost and his return to the office.
What I Would Have Done Differently If… By Atiku Abubakar
I have been inundated with inquiries of what I would have done differently if I were at the helm of affairs of our country. I am not the president, Tinubu is. The focus should be on him and not on me or any other. I believe that such inquiries distract from the critical questions of what President Bola Tinubu needs to do to save Nigerians from the excruciating pains arising from his trial-and-error economic policies. However, I understand and appreciate the challenges faced by citizens in seeking alternatives to what is not working for them. I hope Tinubu and members of his administration are humble enough to borrow one or two things from our ideas in the interest of the Nigerian people. I would now go ahead and articulate some of our ideas that would have had the potential to transform our beloved country.
IN GENERAL
We would have planned better and more robustly: My journey of reforms would have benefited from more adequate preparations; more sufficient diagnostic assessment of the country’s conditions; more consultations with key stakeholders; and better ideas for the final destination.
We would have been guided by my robust reform agenda as encapsulated in ‘My Covenant With Nigerians’, my policy document that sought to, among others, protect our fragile economy against much deeper crisis by preventing business collapse; our document had spelt out policies that were consistent and coherent.
We would have sequenced my reforms to achieve fiscal and monetary congruence. Unleashing reforms to determine an appropriate exchange rate, cost-reflective electricity tariff, and PMS price at one and the same time is certainly an overkill. Add CBN’s bullish money tightening spree. As importer of PMS and other petroleum products, removing subsidy on these products without a stable exchange rate would be counterproductive.
We would have been more strategic in our response to reform fallout. We would not over-estimate the efficacy of the reform measures or underestimate the potential costs of reforms. I would recognise that reforms could sometimes fail. I would not underestimate the numerous delivery challenges, including the weaknesses of our institutions, and would work assiduously to correct the same. I would, as a responsible leader, pause, reflect, and where necessary, review implementation.
I would have led by example. Any fiscal reform to improve liquidity and the management of our fiscal resources must first eliminate revenue leakages arising from governance, including the cost of running the government and the government procurement process. I (and members of my team) would not have lived in luxury while the citizens wallow in misery.
We would have communicated more effectively with the people, with civility, tact, and diplomacy.
Transparent communication with the public is essential to build public trust, which in turn is important to ensure that the public understands what the government is doing.
We would have consulted more with all stakeholders to learn, negotiate, adapt, and modify, among other policy goals.
We would have demonstrated more empathy. My Reforms would wear a human face.
We would have been more strategic in the design and implementation of reform fallout mitigating measures. I would not run a ‘palliative economy’ yet, we would have a robust social protection programme that will offer genuine support to the poor and vulnerable and provide immediate comfort and security to enable them to navigate the stormy seas.
SPECIFIC MEASURES
We would have undertaken extensive reforms of the public sector institutions to maximize reform impact.
We would have placed special focus on security viz
• Commenced on day one, the reform of security institutions with improved funding, and enhanced welfare. My Policy Document had spelt out a Special Presidential Welfare Initiative for security personnel that we would implement
• Adopted alternative approaches to conflict resolution such as diplomacy, intelligence, improved border control, deploying traditional institutions, and good neighbourliness.
We would have launched an Economic Stimulus Fund (ESF), with an initial investment capacity of approximately US$10 billion to support MSMEs across all economic sectors.
How would this have been funded?
Details are in my Policy Document.
Alongside the ESF, we would have launched a uniquely designed skills-to-job programme that targets all categories of youth, including graduates, early school leavers as well as the massive numbers of uneducated youth who are currently not in education, employment, or training.
To underscore our commitment to the development of infrastructure, an Infrastructure Development Unit (IDU) directly under the President’s watch would have come into operation. The IDU will have a coordinating function and a specific mandate of working with the MDAs to fast track the implementation of the infrastructure reform agenda within the framework provided herein. The IDU will hit the ground running in putting the building blocks for our private sector driven Infrastructure Development Fund (IDF) of approximately US$25 billion.
To engender fiscal efficiency and promote accountability and transparency in public financial management, we would have committed to a review of the current fiscal support to ailing State-Owned enterprises. We would’ve also begun a process review of government procurement processes to ensure value-for-money and eliminate all leakages.
We would have initiated a review of the current utilization of all borrowed funds and ensured that they were deployed more judiciously.
SUBSIDY REMOVAL
Yes, I have always advocated for the removal of subsidy on PMS because its administration has been mildly put, opaque with so much scope for arbitrariness and corruption. Mind boggling rent profit from oil subsidy accrued to the cabals in public institutions and the private sector.
I would have prioritized the following:
First, tackling corruption. Fighting corruption should have commenced with the repositioning of the NNPCL, which is a huge beneficiary of the status quo. Its commitment to reform and capacity to implement and enforce reforms is suspect. The subsidy regime has provided an avenue for rent seeking, and the NNPCL and its guardians will be threatened by reforms.
Second, paying particular attention to Nigeria’s poor refining infrastructure. We are by far the most inefficient OPEC member country in terms of both the percentage of installed refining capacity that works and the percentage of crude refined. We would’ve commenced the privatization of all state-owned refineries and ensure that Nigeria starts to refine at least 50% of its current crude oil output. Nigeria should aspire to export 50% of that capacity to ECOWAS member states.
Third, adopt a gradualist approach in the implementation of the subsidy reforms. Subsidies would not have been removed suddenly and completely. It is instructive that when I was Vice President, we adopted a gradualist approach and had completed phases 1 and 2 of the reform before our tenure ended. The incoming administration in 2007 abandoned the reforms, unfortunately. The majority of the countries that review or rationalize subsidy payments adopt a gradualist approach by phasing price increases or shifting from universal to targeted approach (Malaysia, 2022 and Indonesia, 2022 -2023). In many EU economies, complete withdrawal often takes 5 years to effect. The gradualist approach allows for adjustments, adaptation and minimizes disruptions and vulnerability.
Fourth, implement a robust social protection programme that will support the poor in navigating the cost-of-living challenges arising largely from reform implementation. We would’ve invested the savings from subsidy withdrawal to strengthen the productive base of the economy through infrastructure maintenance and development; to improve outcomes in education and healthcare delivery; to improve rural infrastructure and support livelihood expansion in agriculture; and develop the skills and entrepreneurial capacity of our youth in order to enhance their access to better economic opportunities.
ON FOREIGN EXCHANGE REFORMS
I also made a commitment to reform the operation of the foreign exchange market. Specifically, there was a commitment to eliminate multiple exchange rate windows. The system only served to enrich opportunists, rent-seekers, middlemen, arbitrageurs, and fraudsters.
What would I have done?
A fixed exchange rate system was out of the question because it would not be in line with our philosophy of running an open, private sector friendly economy. On the other hand, given Nigeria’s underlying economic conditions, adopting a floating exchange rate system would be an overkill. We would have encouraged our Central Bank to adopt a gradualist approach to FX management. A managed-floating system would have been a preferred option.
Atiku Abubakar is Vice President of Nigeria (1999-2007) and Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (2023)
Abuja