The Provost of Federal College of Education (Technical) Akoka, Lagos, Dr Wahab Ademola Azeez, has raised the alarm that his life and that of his family members are being threatened by the staff members of the college, who he alleged to have locked him out of office and barred him from performing his roles for the past one month.
Azeez declared that aside that the workers barred him from accessing his office with some other officers using the same administrative block of the college since May 27 till date and also protesting on campus for his removal every other day, they physically assaulting and humiliating his family members in their house within the campus.
According to him, a quit notice giving his family just seven days to pack out from the ‘provost lodge’ where his family lives has been pasted on the building.
The provost made these allegations while speaking with newsmen via Zoom on Thursday evening to raise the alarm, calling on the Federal Government, the police and other security agencies to wade into the matter for peace to reign in the college.
He said he had been playing maturity all along as a leader since the controversies started to make amicable resolution with the protesters and for the sake of the college but that the efforts were to no avail.
He said trouble started just as he was reappointed for second term as provost of the college on May 26, and the workers, then under the Joint Action Committee (JAC) comprising the Senior Staff Union of Colleges of Education in Nigeria (SSUCOEN) and the Non- Academic Staff Union (NASU) of the branch rose against the development and working vigorously to ensure he didn’t return to the seat.
He said the unions initially based their argument on the premise of a new College Act (2023), which permits provosts of colleges of education in the country to run for only single term of five years in office and no longer two terms of four years each as the previous arrangement allowed.
He said they went as far as petitioned the Federal Ministry of Education seeking for interpretation of what the new Act is saying about the office of the Provosts of Colleges of Education, the interpretation of which he said is to his favour because the Act became effective about a month after he had already secured a reappointment.
He said rather than for them to allow the law to take it course and peace to reign in the college, the workers, who he said are few in number, came under another name, called “Concerned Staff” to continue to disrupt the academic and administrative activities of the college since then.
The provost expressed surprise about the protesters coming together under a new name, “Concerned Staff” to fight him when in actual fact only four staff unions, namely: Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU), National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT), SSUCOEN and NASU, are known to law and recognised.
He also claimed that the national bodies of both SSUCOEN and NASU which had earlier in support of the fight against his person had later backed out after gotten the wind that the new Act does not affect his returning for the second term.
He said he deserved to be commended by all categories of staff for his good leadership style and the numerous achievements in academic, research, innovation and community services, his administration recorded in the last four years of his first tenure and not the other way round as currently being done by those he labelled “few evil elements” in the system.
He noted that twice, first, on May 29, and then just on Wednesday June 26, that his family members had been assaulted and harassed by the protesters, who stormed the Provost Lodge to remind them of the quit notice been served.
He, however, called on those he said formenting trouble to sheathe their sword and allow the 57- year- old college to continue to enjoy peace.
Reacting to the provost allegations, one of the arrow heads of the protest and Chairman of SSUCOEN, Augustine Nwachukwu, declared that it is the entire staff members of the college numbering about 800, and with students supporting, are all against the reappointment of the provost.
He told Saturday Tribune in an interview that their grouse against the provost is not only that he is high- handedness and tyrannical in governance, but also grossly incompetent to oversee the affairs of a Nigeria’s foremost college.
He said Azeez’s-led administration had plunged the college into a big mess that required a fresh mind and competent person to turn things around for better, otherwise the embattled provost, according to him, will pull down the college completely if he shoukd be allowed for another four years.
He listed some of Dr Azeez administration’s sins to include and not limited to poor staff welfare and students hostels, non-signing of students certificates for years, high-handedness, reduction in students’ enrolment, poor infrastructures, illegal conversion of home economics laboratory to residential apartment.
Nwachukwu, however, acknowledged that even though the Federal Ministry of Education and the Committee of Provosts of Colleges of Education in the country had waded into the crisis by sending delegations to the college and promising to look into the matter, nothing is heard from any of them since then.
He said to show that the entire workforce of the college and the students meant business that the embattled provost is not wanted against have dissolved the leadership of NASU, COEASU and the Students Union Government giving room for constitution of caretaker committees to be in charge.
“So, all we know is that Dr Azeez must go. We don’t want him as our provost again. For him to continue to be the provost is to destroy our dear college completely.
“Therefore, it is either government sack him and appoint a replacement in acting capacity pending when new governing council will be inaugurated or to sack all the workers, over 800 of us for the sake of keeping him as the provost of the college.
“That is our stand and it is the only way out of this struggle,” he concluded.
