Tension escalated at King’s College, Lagos, on Wednesday, as the police sealed the school premises at Onikan following days of protests by aggrieved parents over the unresolved concession crisis rocking the institution.
BusinessDay had reported that parents and workers of King’s College had serious altercations with the King’s College Old Boys’ Association (KCOBA) leaders and policemen on Tuesday, hence the Nigerian Police Force intervention, keeping everyone out of the college gate.
The major roads leading to King’s College main gate were cordoned off by police, forcing vehicles coming from Tafawa Balewa to CMS Bus Stop to divert to other routes.
The KCOBA leaders, including Ibrahim Imam, the national president, and Olumide Akpata, former president of the Nigerian Bar Association, were at the Onikan campus for a meeting of the association to deliberate on the way forward regarding the concession of the college.
Briefing newsmen, members of the executive committee of KCOBA assured that the college would be run by them, bearing in mind the principles behind the running and operation of Unity Colleges.
‘We are saying it again that we are not going to turn the college into an elitist one. We will run it in line with the principles behind the setting up of Unity Colleges and their operation.
‘In fact, that is contained in the agreement we signed for the concession. To say we are buying it is wrong. There is no willing seller or buyer of King’s College. The federal government is not selling, while KCOBA is not buying,’ Imam said.
In addition, he said, ‘All our interventions in the past, rehabilitating and renovating facilities and even building new ones, have amounted to naught.
‘Whenever we fixed a facility, in the next few months and you come to assess the situation, the facility has either been vandalized or destroyed completely.’
Etigwe Uwa, the Secretary of the association, speaking on how to sustain the concession and running of the college, said, ‘I cannot be part of a system that would deny people a platform to fly.
‘King’s College gave me such a platform, and I have to extend the same to others, but we must first save the college from its deplorable state.’
Meanwhile, the federal government has ruled out any reversal of its decision to concession the management of King’s College, Lagos, to the institution’s Old Boys Association, insisting that the arrangement is aimed at addressing the school’s longstanding infrastructure and management challenges.
Tunji Alausa, the minister of education, while briefing journalists against the backdrop of the continuing protest by workers of the Federal Ministry of Education and their unions over the proposed concession and the closure of some federal unity schools, accused some directors within the ministry of allegedly instigating workers against the federal government policy.
‘The federal government had intelligence identifying officials allegedly involved in mobilising staff against the concession.
‘It’s obvious now that some directors in the ministry of education are instigating their staff. We have intelligence to show us some directors in the ministry of education who are instigating their staff,’ he said.
Speaking about the controversy surrounding the Federal Unity Schools, the minister emphasised that the federal government is not selling any Unity College.
‘The Federal Government, through the Federal Ministry of Education, does not have the intention to sell any Unity College, and we will not sell any Unity College.
‘It is only if the president gives us, myself and the minister of state, N2 trillion today; it will not be enough to fix our Unity Colleges,’ he noted.
On situations at King’s College, Lagos, after his visit to the school, Alausa said some sections of the school were clean, while the infrastructure was old and required significant attention.
The minister kicked against the idea that concessioning King’s College amounted to selling government property, stressing that ownership would remain with the federal government.