As part of my write up; Rescue Mission @ 2; The Good, Bad and Ugly which began last week, I will continue to dwell on the education sector where the Imo State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha is believed to be the commander of free education.
However, developments in Imo State Polytechnic, Umuagwo-Ohaji are pitiable as the only state polytechnic is witnessing turbulent season at the moment. Apart from poor funding and associated strikes from the various unions, the planned relocation of courses from the permanent site campus at Umuagwo to other areas is heightening tension and brewing uneasy calm in Ohaji/Egbema local government area. The present administration has concluded arrangement to balkanize the school in pretext of multi-campus system.
It might interest readers that Imo Poly is one of the monumental legacies bequeathed to Imo people by the Sam Mbakwe administration which started as College of Agriculture. Succeeding military and civilian Governors not only continued to give the school a facelift but also never contemplated to balkanize or create multi-campus system since the law establishing the institution has no such provision.
More so, two former Civilian Governors of the state who never cared to fractionalise the institution in their quest to raise the school’s standard improved on the status of the 34 year-old institution. Without politicizing the location of the campus, Udenwa elevated the school from a mere College of Agriculture to a Semi-Polytechnic status by naming it Michael Okpara College of Agriculture and Technology MOCATECH, while Ohakim increased the bar higher by raising it to a full-fledged Polytechnic after the members of the Imo State House of Assembly amended the law establishing it. In all these exercises of the past Governors, there was no caveat for creations of multi-campus or political balkanization of the different schools, departments and courses by the key players of that administration. The planned action therefore is surprise package to the people of the area and indeed Imo people who had expected meaningful developments in Imopoly in line with the “Rescue Mission” spirit than sheer politicization of the institution.
It would be recalled that since 2007 when a law changed the school to a Polytechnic status, the fortunes of the institution have changed with more students population occasioned by new courses, attraction of international, state and federal bodies (like ETF, Tetfund, NDDC, ISOPADEC) projects and partnership in developing the school. The quality of education has been enhanced as well. The new status further satiated the mental psyche of the host communities who before now have been having plethora of complaints of the under utilization of the more than 368 hectares of land freely donated to the state government even without adequate compensation.
The questions disturbing keen observers of developments in Imo are the reasons behind the purported balkanization of Imopoly in the name of multi-campus system, when the originating/Foundation Law never provided for it as well as top office holders from different zones who redesigned the school within that period never cared to share the institution’s various departments as part of their political loot or proceeds of their privileged positions in government of the day.
Again, it is worrisome that instead of improving on infrastructure and rehabitating some of the obsolete and decaying academic facilities at the IMOPOLY campus, Umuagwo, the present government is toying with a multi-campus system that would definitely throw back the school to its former state of abject neglect and abandonment which it witnessed several years under military regime. It is worthy to note that despite ‘Rescue Mission’ claim of free and qualitative education in Imo State, IMOPOLY is going comatose as 60% of its courses and departments have not been accredited by the National Board for Technical Education, NBTE. That big minus has denied graduating IMOPOLY students National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, call up mobilization, a development that has never been witnessed in the history of the school. It is important also to state that monies and logistics to be spent at the new campus at Orlu, Ehime Mbano and Ikeduru LGAs if not for selfish political interests by some key players of the present administration would have been injected to raise the standard of the polytechnic that looks more of a glorified high school if compared.
Even as a multi-campus system is not enshrined in the IMOPOLY law, it will interest the public to know the rationale behind taking part of IMOPOLY to a school in Orlu LGA, when the original and permanent site at Umuagwo location is part of Ohaji/Egbema LGA, an integral part of Orlu Zone.
Instead of fulfilling his promise of building a university in each of the zones, which Okorocha said when challenged during his unilateral decision to relocate Imo State University from Owerri to his Ogboko-Ideato South country home, the Governor is using IMOPOLY for that purpose. If the Governor’s planned balkanization of IMOPOLY is not intended to “rob Peter to pay Paul” why is Okorocha paying lip service and dilly-dallying on the establishment of the over-expected IMSU faculty of Engineering and the proposed College of Education for Okigwe Zone? The IMSU Foundation Law approved the Engineering Faculty for Okigwe Zone and the recent law passed by the Imo State House of Assembly sited the College of Education at Okigwe Zone too.
More importantly, what would remain of the permanent site and main campus at Umuagwo when the vital facilities like Management, Engineering, and Environment faculties are taking to Cooperative College Nsu, Ehime Mbano, TSACS Orlu, and a Secondary School at Ikeduru respectively? With Agriculture Faculty only, IMOPOLY may reverse to its College of Agriculture days. What an irony of fate under Rescue Mission government of Okorocha.
Imo Poly foundation law never provided for multi-campus system and the present arrangement is illegal as no amended was affected in the law. Sometime last year, Okorocha in one of his unofficial tours to Orlu stopped at TSAS where he told the people that it will become Orlu campus of Imo Poly. Alarmed at the development, the Speaker of the House, Rt Hon Ben Uwajumogu, who is from Okigwe zone reportedly frowned at the development where Imo poly will have two campuses in Orlu zone. That agitation earned him a part of the campus situated at Cooperative College, NSU in Ehime Mbano of Okigwe zone. The members of the House instead of following the expected processes is amending the law met at “Exco” of the State Assembly at the Speaker’s office to ratify their actions. At that point, one of the lawmakers from Owerri zone challenged the “Imo Poly gifts” to Orlu and Ehime before Ikeduru was considered to compensate Owerri zone.
If Imo Poly was created by law, creating multi campuses without amendment of the law by the State Assembly is illegal, unjust and unfair. The action is purely undemocratic and unlawful as no public hearing was observed for the amendment.
It is believed that the Governor saw in Ohaji/Egbema people soft and easy target to humiliate after Owerri zone people resisted and fought his attempts to relocate IMSU to Ogboko, his home town.
The planned relocation of Imo Poly to other areas of the state in the name of multi-campus system may be part of the present administration’s continued marginalization, humiliation and non consideration of people of Ohaji/Egbema in the scheme of things as the Rescue Mission government has since inception in 2011 treated the major food basket and vital oil producing area of Imo State as “War captives” in Imo family. The blackout experienced in Ohaji/Egbema since ISOPADEC no longer funds PHCN for power supply, non alsphating of a single kilometre road in the LGA unlike others, and non existence of the Roche-type new model school blocks, speak volume of the rejection of Ohaji/Egbema in Imo State. The planned relocation is the last straw to break the camels back in Okorocha’s “Operation Ostracise Ohaji/Egbema”
Except the Okorocha administration intends to share Imo Poly as a political loot among the “Rescue Mission” warlords it would have known that no state or federal polytechnic in the South East region that have existed for years has a multi campus system. From Fed Poly Nekede, Abia Poly, Aba, IMT Enugu, Fed Poly, Oko and nearby Riv Poly Bori, River State has one single campus.
The balkanization of Imopoly is a by-product of selfish interest borne of the garrulous desires of the power that be in Imo at the moment. I will still remind our dear Governor and his cohorts involved in the balkanization agenda about a popular Yoruba adage which states that “ Taba fun were ni oko ako si odo ara-e” meaning “when an imbecile is given a farm implement to harvest, he/she will always draw the proceeds to his/her side” For now lets stop here.
