From: Femi Oyelola, Kaduna
The umbrella body of polytechnics students in Nigeria, the National Association of Polytechnic Students (NAPS), has called on the security agencies, to arrest and prosecute the founder of one ‘Ikpeminoghena Foundation For Peace’, Mr Idodo Emmanuel Abdulrasak for allegedly inciting the students against the management of Auchi Polytechnic.
NAPS in a statement issued by its National President, Comrade Ridwan Opeyemi Munirudeen made available to the media in Kaduna yesterday that, the act of incident committed by Idodo should not be ignored by the security agencies, considering the volatility of Auchi and Edo, which is gearing up towards its Governorship election.
The NAPS President lamented that, in an era where youths in other countries were using social media platforms for knowledge and technological advancement, Idodo was using it to incite Auchi Polytechnic students to riot against the institution’s authority over alleged tuition fee hikes.
Munirudeen said, that as a proactive student union body, NAPS had engaged the Management of Auchi Polytechnic and came to the understanding that there was nothing like a tuition fee hike in the Polytechnic.
According to him, “To put the record straight, the management of Auchi Polytechnic led by the Rector, Dr. S S. Umar didn’t increase the tuition fee, the coward only failed to understand that a new program called National Skill Acquisition (NSQ) has been introduced into the curriculum by NBTE and this is not peculiar to Auchi Polytechnic alone, just that Six (6) institutions representing the six (6) geo-political zones of the federation were chosen to run as pilot project.
“The issue brought about different questions from the SUG officials and some indigenous student leaders, this drew the attention of NAPS and the management took ample time to explain in detail. It may interest you to know that the program NSQ was introduced and students were charged N30,000, but the SUG executives of Auchi Polytechnic met with the management and pleaded for a possible reduction, the management then reduced the charge to N25,000.
“The management further explained what the program entails, NSQ is targeted at ensuring no student graduates without a skill, at least. This will further reduce the rate of unemployment in Nigeria as Polytechnic graduates are supposed to be employers of labour and not the other way around.
“Students will not just go through the physical training but will also be certified to practice in any part of the world, the said certificate is not issued by any school management but by NABTEB which is known internationally. The charged fee is meant to cater for both training and certificates as the Federal Government wouldn’t take responsibility for such.”
