By Adesina Wahab
The leadership crisis rocking the Federal College of Education, Technical, Akoka, Lagos took another dimension early Thursday morning, as some unidentified gunmen abducted the Deputy Registrar of the college, Mr Chris Olamiju, from his official residence.
Olamiju is among the academic and non-academic staff that have been protesting the continued stay in office of the Provost, Dr Wahab Azeez, for about five weeks now.
Sources in the college told Vanguard that the unidentified gunmen forcibly entered into Olamiju’s staff quarters at about 3am and took him to an unknown place.
The gunmen broke down the doors into the staff quarters and reportedly dragged Olamiju away.
A source, who craved anonymity, said they suspect that the gunmen could be men of the Department of State Services.
“The generality of staff of FCET, Akoka have been on peaceful protests since the past five weeks. The peaceful protests are sequel to multiple grievous allegations of administrative and financial infractions against the Provost.
“A very disturbing report was sent out around 3:00am of today, Thursday, 11th July 2024 that Mr Chris Olamiju, a Deputy Registrar and one of the prominent leaders of the protest actions was violently brutalized and abducted from his residence at FCET, Akoka Senior Staff Quarters, Yaba, Lagos in a Gestapo styled operation by gunmen suspected to be operatives of DSS.
“The wife, children and other family members of Mr Chris Olamiju were assaulted during the dastardly invasion.
“Documents, phones, laptops etc of Mr Chris Olamiju were carted away and FCET, Akoka Senior Staff Quarters was thrown into pandemonium.
“We hereby call on the DG of DSS and well meaning Nigerians to intervene and ensure the immediate and unconditional release of Mr Chris Olamiju.
“Failure to heed this clarion call will lead to workers of FCET, Akoka embarking on full blown strike action, which may spread to other Federal and State Colleges of Education in Nigeria, ” the workers, acting under the aegis of Concerned Workers of FCET, Akoka, said in a statement.
The college has not witnessed peace since May 27, this year, as the workers and the provost have been at loggerheads over when the provost’s tenure expires.
Azeez was first appointed in May 2019 for four years and got a second term on May 26, 2023.
However, in June this year, President Bola Tinubu signed a law limiting the tenure of provosts of such colleges to one single term of five years.
The workers are saying Azeez has completed five years beginning from 2019 and should go, while Azeez is saying the new law does not affect him.
The Governing Council of the college is currently looking into the matter and other allegations levelled against each other by the parties.
