De-accreditation: Ikpeazu approves N450 million in salary support for Abia Polytechnic

By Adeleye Kunle

Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, Governor of Abia State, has approved the release of N450 million as salary support to the Abia State Polytechnic, Aba, to pay 4 months of salary arrears owed workers at the institution.

The National Board for Technical Education, NBTE, last week revoked the accreditation of the Abia State Polytechnic, Aba, for failing to pay workers’ salaries for 30 months.

Ikpeazu stated this when he received a delegation of student leaders from the State’s tertiary institutions on a solidarity visit at the Governor’s Lodge Aba, explaining that the government is not responsible for paying the salaries of workers at the Polytechnic or any other tertiary institution in the State.

He did, however, promise that his administration would not abandon the Polytechnic and would continue to pay the institution’s monthly subventions of N90 million. He also revealed that his administration has paid the Polytechnic a total of N7.1 billion in subventions since taking office in 2015.

“What the State Government owes the Institution is a monthly subvention of 90 million Naira,” he says. Since taking office in 2015, my administration has paid a total of 7.1 billion Naira to the Polytechnic, which translates to 92 million Naira per month for the 78 months he has been Governor.

“With this additional 450 million Naira support, the Polytechnic has received over 7.5 billion Naira from his administration, and I wonder why the institution is unable to manage their internal financial issues, given that they collect and retain all manner of fees from their students.”

He advised that the Polytechnic must be able to manage what is available to them because they handle admissions and hire their own staff.

Concerning the withdrawal of the Polytechnic’s accreditation by the National Board for Technical Education, NBTE, the Governor insisted that the NBTE’s mandate does not extend to shutting down an institution due to labor-related issues because it is not the National Industrial Court.

Ikpeazu questioned why the NBTE did not withdraw accreditation of some tertiary institutions in some parts of the country where insecurity has halted academic activities for more than two years, but chose to do so at Abia Polytechnic, where teaching and learning are still taking place.

The Governor assured the students that he and the lecturers had reached a written agreement that academic activities at the Polytechnic would continue uninterrupted while the interface with the NBTE worked to resolve the crisis.

He praised the student leaders for refusing to be used as agents of destabilization as a result of the challenge at Abia Polytechnic and urged them to be vigilant, especially as election season approaches, as desperate politicians may want to use them to cause confusion in the state.

Earlier, student leaders from all of the state’s tertiary institutions, the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, and the National Association of Abia State Students, NAAS, told the Governor that the students are behind him and would not allow those who do not wish the state well to use students to cause confusion.

They also informed the Governor that those claiming to be student leaders and voting against the Governor last week were not students at any state institution.

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