WHY MAPOLY CANNOT BE KILLED FOR MAUSTECH

Following the recent crisis that threatens the transition of Moshood Abiola Polytechnic into Moshood Abiola University of Science and Technology, the chairman of Academic staff Union of Polytechnic, MAPOLY chapter, Comrade Kola Abiola spoke exclusively with SODIQ OJUROUNGBE of PLATFORM TIMES NEWSPAPER on the reasons the association called for the removal of the transition committee chairman, Prof. Peter Okebukola and other related issues.

Some people are of the opinion that MAPOLY ASUP is not in support of MAPOLY becoming a University?

That’s is an erroneous information that those people have, because, long ago, at least the present Rector is almost finishing his first term, that’s about four years ago, when the man resumed he said he has the mandate of the government that they want to transmute this school to a University. The earliest notice that people could say that they have, is four years ago. It is not a strange news and we never at any time as a union, you know we cannot all speak with the same voice, but we never at any time as a union said that we are against the University.

What now really happened between the ASUP and transition committee?

What we are saying is that, when things are to be done, things should be done in the right perspectives. There is this adage in the part of our country that says that you don’t shape somebody’s head in his absence. You are deciding the fate of people that you want to move from one place to another without considering them. Apart from that, there is a lot of other consideration you need to account before you begin to do a lot of things, these, we think things are not properly done.

For the record, we have said that we believe in the Governor of Ogun state who wants to do this, because, we know that he passes through the process of the law of establishing the two institutions that they wanted to do. As a matter of fact, we are part of it that should tell you that we are not against it; we are part of the open debate and the open hearing that was done on the university. A lot of questions that we needed to ask the committee which they did not give us opportunity to ask, we have highlighted them in our communiqué. Those questions that we think we should ask and which are pertinent is the question that we have asked . It is reported that the governor has said it in more than one occasion that the only tertiary institution in Ogun state that has not given him problem is Moshood Abiola Polytechnic. It has been recorded in another forum where the governor told tertiary institutions that if you don’t know how to manage your school, go to MAPOLY to teach you. There is no magic that is going on in MAPOLY, there has been financial engineering, and this financial engineering boils down on the payment of institution fee of the students and this is what we have been using to sustain ourselves.

If this two institutions are formed, the polytechnic in Ipokia and the University in Abeokuta. By standard, a new university, they will give you 500 students, if you have everything that you want to use they give you 2,000 students. We had that from a reliable source that they are proposing N120,000 per student, and N120,000 multiply by 2,000 students is nothing less than N50million. How will that run a school in a year, school that has little or no subvention from the government? Our wage bill presently in MAPOLY stands about N150million,how much do we get from the government? N11million that is not constant, and yet we have not gone for a strike for one day in the last four years until this crisis started.

Also, we got an approval to start a University, what do we have to start a polytechnic, we are aware that before you can start a polytechnic, you must get approval from NBTE, and NBTE doesn’t give accreditation anyhow, they give accreditation by sites; what you have on site, the manpower that you have and the infrastructure that you have. It is worth to know that just the month of July; NBTE wrote MAPOLY and gave us accreditation for 23 courses for the next five years. We don’t have accreditation for one course in Ogun state polytechnic, Ipokia. Do you want to take students there to go and run illegal programme? If you force us there now and there is a dawn of another new government, what do you think will happen to people that are going there?. It is not about the University or no University, some people have Ph.D. in this school and they still want to stay within the polytechnic. If their courses are not offered in the polytechnic, what becomes of them?. So, these are the questions that we are asking. So,nobody, let me repeat again for emphasis, I don’t think there is any polytechnic whether state or federal polytechnic that has the number of Ph.D. holders MAPOLY had. When we started this struggle on July 3rd, 2017, I said we have Ph.D. holders in this school, as I speak to you now, we have 50 and some people are finishing their programmes. There are some schools that don’t have five Ph.D. holders. Even, Prof. Okebukola that sits on the board of Crawford University, who is the chairman of the transition committee, cannot boast of 10 Ph.D. holders that are permanent staff of Crawford University. It is not the matter of being afraid, our people are not lazy academically, they are doing what they ought to have done. The requirement to teach in a polytechnic is just Bsc, and we have people with Ph. D and people are still going to pursue excellence in academic. It is not about being afraid, we are just concerned about things being done in the right way.

They want to use the school to honour the late son of Ogun state, Bashorun Kashimawo Abiola, we know that in his life time, he stood for quality and he stood for an enduring legacy, he paid the utmost sacrifice to have democracy in Nigeria. Why would you start something in his name that will not endure?. What we’re saying is that, do things in the right way so that things will endure, we do not want the university to start this year and by 2019 the University will be dead. We do not want Ogun state polytechnic to start now and by 2019 the polytechnic will be dead. All we are saying is that we do not kill a prince because you are expecting an unborn king. MAPOLY has been established in Abeokuta and it has promoted the image of Abeokuta and Ogun state at large over 30 years now. So, because you are expecting a university, must you kill the polytechnic and that’s what we were saying, if you want to do it, do it right. Nobody is against moving polytechnic to Ipokia or starting a university in Abeokuta, just make sure you do the thing in the proper way. If you look at our communiqué you will see the question that we asked and these are the questions that we are saying. As I speak to you now the September salary of members of Moshood Abiola Polytechnic is not guaranted because the government has not allowed us to admit students and this is the government that is not paying us a dime to pay salary.

What do you want from the government?

We are just telling them to do things right, there are other model schools that can be used to do this thing , if they are going to start a university, why not make the University to take off and continue to run the polytechnic. As matter of fact, students that filled JAMB form this year to come to Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, if you say you are not admitting those students now, two things will happen to them, they will wait until they are considered by their second choice which would never happen or they will put additional burden on the parents to go and pay more for change of institution meaning that we are not an organized institution in Ogun state which I don’t think we are . But what we are saying is that for this year that you have advertised, let them take students for this year, this school is still running, Ipokia is going on, you are building and improving the infrastructure until it is time for them to move there. Nobody is saying the university should not stand, Moshood Abiola Polytechnic has about 135 hecres of land, even, if the university wants to start, the university can start somewhere until the polytechnic moves out to its eventual destination. Moshood Abiola Polytechnic which used to be Ogun state polytechnic moved from one place to this place. So, why not that the university can move from one place before it later settles down. The proposed site in Ipokia is still a virgin land, the proposed venue is a model college which is not completed, there is no infrastructure, is that where you want to move 27 courses to, the school that is meant to house model school . And I don’t think they will mention five polytechnics in Nigeria that they will not mention Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, is that the kind of institution you want to kill?

Those are the questions that we are asking, nobody is against the University, and we participated in the event that led to the law of being made to establish a university. We are not against it, we participated in the hearing, if we are against it, we will not participate and our contributions are there and there is prosperity to judge us. So, it is erroneous for anybody to say ASUP is against the transition of the university.

Since the suspension of the industrial action embarked on by your association, what was the response from governor so far?

No response, that’s why we said in our communiqué that we have lost confidence in the transition committee led by Prof. Okebukola, and we have tried to reach out to the commissioner for education, we have documented and sent letters to her. Until we made our last communiqué on the 3rd that she was now replying the two letters we sent on the 8th and there is nothing in the letter than we have received your letter and your complaint will be passed to the appropriate quarters. The quarters we don’t know and we have not heard anything. JAMB said that the deadline for the admission of students to their first choice higher institutions is Octorber 15 and this is August 28th, admission process has not started in MAPOLY. It is going to have a lot of multiplying effects, by September , October salary will no longer be paid. If eventually you want them to admit students, you will be admitting the left-overs among the students, then you will now be struggling to make lecturer teach them properly because what you have as students are the remnant that are left.

You as a lecturer in the polytechnic, where do you think the transition committee gets it wrong?

They got it wrong from the beginning, because, when they came here Prof. Okebukola said he has about 19 years experience with the people that run the technical committee. If you have that kind of experience, the experience should have taught you to do things right. All we are seeing that the committee is doing is grandstanding, because I will authoritatively say that they have not done anything and they are deceiving the government of Ogun state. We know that Prof. Okebukola is already meeting with Prof. Oyesiku of TASUED to give him the blueprint of how they did TASUED. If he has done his job very well, will he be contacting TASUED? No, it means he has not done his job, he is just grandstanding. And we told him since inception that we have to employ different techniques because no two bags are the same. You might have established a university; have you established a university from a polytechnic? No, this is an existing school, going into another school in another realm; you have not done that before, consult. We have not said we didn’t want you to work; it is on record that when you came here, we welcome you with open hand and we told you that we will be willing to work with you, only for you to be meeting with your committee and be deciding people’s fate without consulting them. Now, they are supposed to submit their report, they are now consulting another person in another school to get them the blueprint of how TASUED was made, so, if you want to know how TASUED was made, is that how to do it? You have people on ground that you can consult here. It is not about grandstanding, There are proper way to do proper things. These are things we are saying you should do and now you don’t want to talk to us and you can now go and be looking for Prof Oyesiku up and down disturbing the old man that he should come and give you the blueprint of how he worked it . We want the two schools to survive, we want the two schools to be established. All we are saying is that things should be done in the right way.

We have explained in our communiqué that we are not working with the technical committee again and whatever comes out of the technical committee, we don’t believe in it. We did not see them doing any credible job for the people and government of Ogun state. We are not going to be bounded by the technical committee report. We are not going to involve. We are not going on strike but all we are saying is that time is of essence here and people’s lives are involved, we hope the government will keep to its promises.