Michael Olugbode in Abuja
Board Members of Novelty Polytechnic, Kishi, Oyo State has asked the National Board of Technical Education (NBTE) to close the four illegal campuses operating with the name of the institution and any other one that may exist.
The board members made the demand at a press conference held in Abuja.
One of the board members, Prince Lanre Ogundipe was emphatic when asked what they wanted the NBTE to do.
He said: “NBTE should quickly close down illegal campuses of Novelty Polytechnic. They are not known to us. (Novelty Polytechnic ‘ we have published a disclaimer to that effect.”
Another board member, Dr. Dele Fanimo who addressed the press on behalf of the board members and the wife of the proprietor, Ashat Salami, said they had written to all the relevant institutions in the country concerning the matter and that the person who opened the illegally campuses was in court with the state.
“A staff made himself Managing Director and established satellite campuses and collected revenue into his private account.
“We invited the Police and the matter was charged to court and he was granted bail.
“We audited our accounts and realised he (allegedly) embezzled over N50m and sacked him. He turned round and went to one Non Governmental Organization (NGO), and said we infringed on his fundamental human rights. We wrote NBTE but they did not respond, ” he said
According to him “the four illegal campuses are located in Ibadan, Lagos, Minna and Abuja. They were opened in the name of Novelty Polytechnic and used to defraud people of their hard earned money.”
He also noted that the NBTE wrote them at a point that they were running against the rules by operating satellite campuses and their response to the letter was that, “Novels Polytechnic will never encourage any action against the agency supervising our institution, we will not compromise the standards put in place by NBTE for technical education.”
“Our aim is to revive technical education in Nigeria,” he added
In their response to the NBTE of running illegal campuses which he made available to the media it read,
“He and his group are still running the illegal Campuses he cunningly established through forged letters he wrote in my and those of some previous staff of my Polytechnic (copies he attached to his petition to NBTE) as evidences of infractions against the Polytechnic. We have found out that he deliberately used my electronic signature in his custody and implanted same on the letters.”
“He also forged my signature, giving approval to several educational institutions which initially requested to canvass and populate Novelty on commission. They used this avenue to establish campuses of NoveltyPoly. Novelty never applied to NBTE for Satellite campuses outside of Kishi nor does she have any approval to run any, hence we quickly did a public disclaimer on discovering the illegality.
We are not an approving authority hence, “How could we ever give what we didn’t have”.
The letter further read: “Not only did we not direct the owners of these outfits to close down, we also, reported to NBTE and requested for support to shut down the, Abuja, Suleija, Bida, Mowe, Igando, Ibadan, Lagos, Agege etc, expecting Madiu and his collaborators to be sanctioned.
“The purported approval letters attached were so obviously unprofessionally written to say that, I the Proprietor “was directed to convey approval of Management” to set up the illegal campuses.”
He urged the State Security Services to do proper investigation of the matter and come out with their findings.
