Kaduna Poly crisis: Not yet uhuru

Like wild fire, the news of an ongoing plan to downsize the workforce of the Kaduna Polytechnic has been filtering around the institution’s community. Initially, many thought it a rumour, but the statements of the acting Rector, Engineer Aminu Aliyu, last week confirmed their fears. The acting Rector had while hosting the National President of […]

Like wild fire, the news of an ongoing plan to downsize the workforce of the Kaduna Polytechnic has been filtering around the institution’s community. Initially, many thought it a rumour, but the statements of the acting Rector, Engineer Aminu Aliyu, last week confirmed their fears.

The acting Rector had while hosting the National President of the Nigerian Society of Chemical Engineering (NSCE), said the institution had no ghost workers, but that it was overstaffed. His words: “We are looking at the situation of overstaffing and intend to train those we can retain and send them to other departments where they can be useful. Those we cannot retain, then we have no alternative but to shake hands and tell them to go.”

The rector’s statement is giving staff of the institution academic and non- academic sleepless nights. It is now the topic of discussion among the workforce of the polytechnic. Sunday Trust gathered that the institution has over 4000 personnel on its payroll.

Though members of the management of the institution are keeping it to themselves, Sunday Trust gathered from a top executive that a committee tagged “streamline committee,” was put together by the Rector with the mandate to bring down the workforce of the institution. A staff audit was conducted before the streamline committee was constituted.

“You know the streamline committee recently went to the rector to intimate him with how far they have gone on their assignment. The rector has asked them to write their report for prompt implementation and I’m very sure the rector said what he said at the NSCE meeting because he previewed the work of the streamline committee,” he told our correspondent on condition of anonymity.

According to him, the streamlining will only affect lecturers who have been lecturing for years without updating their qualifications and that many non-academic staff that are redundant are going to be shown the way out of the polytechnic. He said the decision became necessary in view of the dwindling resources of the institution.

It was gathered that shortly after the institution resumed from strike, the workers were invited for screening. The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnic (ASUP) and other unions of the institution had embarked on strike on the 28th January, 2011 over issues bordering on staff welfare, misappropriation of funds, injustice and general decadence in the institution. The strike lasted till the appointment of the acting rector early last July.

Many members of the Kadpoly community who commented on the performance of the acting rector three months into the six months given to him scored him low.

Speaking to our correspondents, chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnic (ASUP) of the institution, Comrade Mustapha Bida, said they only read the statement of the rector in the newspapers and that it has really dampened the morale of the entire staff of the institution.

“We are not aware of this; all that we know is, we have the laws, we don’t know if the acting rector was quoted out of context but we know that he does not have the power to sack anybody. The laws are clear. We are not also aware of any move by the ministry to that effect or any move by government to that effect because we have seen the white paper and the paper did not address such an issue. To be frank, the issue of retrenchment has actually raised tension among staff of the polytechnic and we are calm because we’ve just come out of crisis and we want to be as cautious as possible; I think we are maturely handling it. We have reported to the authorities and I think something will be done about that because we are not aware and we don’t think the authorities are aware,” he said.

On the streamlining committee constituted by the rector, he said the union is also not aware.  “It is not possible to talk about streamlining staff without the unions being aware and you want industrial harmony. So, we are not aware. In fact, nobody has copied us any letter whatsoever that there is a committee to that effect. We are also not aware of the invitation of any of our members to that committee and we are watching.

“In as much as hopes are high when the new man at the helm of affairs came in, there is some morale dampening but we are very much aware that it is not easy to fight corruption. It will rear its head again in so many styles but we remain undaunted to fight corruption.  We believe the system will be better in spite of the hiccups here and there but we believe that the minister is up to the task. So, no matter the intimidation and aggression, we will remain calm and ensure that the ministry really approaches our issues effectively.

“ There is morale dampening because of the kind of statements, you know a work force that has fought a system, we don’t know if it has become a crime that we blow the whistle that there was corruption in the polytechnic. So, maybe somebody is being used to intimidate us because we have done that. Up till now, the allowances have not been restored and really, there is nothing much to write home about after about three months. Just with the stroke of his pen, the acting rector said he has removed our chief lecturers, our chief lecturers are just what in the universities we have as their heads. Here, he came to the academic board meeting and asked all the chief lecturers to go out that the chief lecturers, the directors and the deans should not be part of the academic board. Its funny but we believe maybe because he has lost touch with the system for a very long time. Anyway we will remain calm and law abiding,” he said.

According to him, “since the acting rector assumed office, he has never for once invited the union for any dialogue. It is we who have been going to him. We believe that his mandate is to stabilize the system and bring back sanity. In the white paper, there are issues of refunding certain money to the staff which has not been done up till now. We are the only federal polytechnic in Nigeria where academic staff have not enjoyed allowances since February, 2011 and we are still calm because we knew the squandermania that went with the former management thinking that things will be put right. We are not happy with the way the so called audit was handled, we told him, in fact we have given him a write-up but he has refused to follow it,”

Commenting on the fact that the staff audit reveals that a lot of staff are redundant and may have to be retrenched, he said the union actually suggested it but that when the acting rector started implementing it, he did not carry them along.

On the inability of lecturers to update their qualifications,; he said there are also very serious reports where lecturers have refused to be released for training, saying, “we have a very good number of staff who had to fend for themselves to go to school,”

Efforts to get the acting rector to respond were unsuccessful as his mobile phone too was not responding even as he refused to reply SMS messages sent to him by our correspondent. 0