Reps Suspend Land Allocation at Kaduna Polytechnic to Non-Staff, Summon Rector and Others

The distribution of Kaduna Polytechnic land plots and residences to individuals who are not employees of the university has been halted by the House of Representatives Committee on Public Assets.

The committee’s decision came after it had reviewed the appeal against the school’s management submitted by Kaduna Polytechnic’s current and former employees.

Dr. Suleiman Umar, the Rector of Kaduna Polytechnic, was also called by the committee.

A Permanent Secretary from the Ministry of Education and the Head of the Presidential Implementation Committee (PIC), along with representatives from the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU), and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Polytechnics (SSANIP) at the Kaduna Polytechnic branch, are also invited to the investigative hearing.

Ademorin Kuye, the chairman of the House Committee on Public Assets, stated that they will be informed of the precise day, time, and location of their presence.

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In their petition to Abbas Tajudeen PhD, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the petitioners bemoaned the illegal actions of the Kaduna Polytechnic authorities, who are dividing up their land plots and selling them to non-employees without sending the proceeds to the government account.

The petitioners further stated that the majority of the polytechnic’s teaching and non-teaching employees are unaware of the institution’s land and housing sales.

The Speaker submitted the petition to his committee for appropriate review and inquiry, according to Chairman Kuye’s statement during the investigative hearing.

After the petitioners, Kaduna Polytechnic management, and the Presidential Implementation Committee presented their cases during the hearing, the committee declared that all land plot and staff housing allotments to non-students would be suspended until the investigations into the purportedly unscrupulous practices in the property sales were completed.

The announcement’s speaker, Kuye, stated that the suspension was required because it would be difficult for future lecturers and non-teaching personnel to run the institution if the majority of its housing and property were sold to outsiders.

“We have many students in school today who will work at the Kaduna Polytechnic tomorrow,” Kuye remarked. Where will the non-staff members of the school be tomorrow if you sell all the property and staff quarters to them now?

He stated that the Presidential Implementation Committee’s resolution, which resulted from an out-of-court agreement between pertinent parties regarding the leasing of Kaduna Polytechnic properties, did not include a clause allowing non-employees of the institution to benefit from the allocations.

In his submission to the House Public Assets Committee, Bala Sanusi, the Head of the Presidential Implementation Committee, stated that the matter of leasing houses and land at Kaduna Polytechnic had led to a protracted legal battle that ended in an out-of-court settlement after more than a decade of litigation.

The Kaduna Polytechnic Board, PIC, and Secretary to the Federal Government all accepted the resolution that resulted from the agreement that the parties to the dispute reached, according to Sanusi.

“Non-staff of Kaduna Polytechnic shall not be a beneficiary of the allocations of plots of land and houses,” states the resolution.

The petitioners compared serving and retired school employees in their presentation, pointing out that majority of the school’s properties for lease were sold to non-staff members in violation of the PIC’s resolution, even though some staff members were unaware that these transactions were taking place.

The PIC supervisor was unable to respond when asked which media outlet he utilised to publicise the sale, which informed outsiders about the school property sale procedure while keeping the majority of the workers in the dark.

Dr. Omale Apochi and Isiaka Bankole, two leaders of the petitioners’ delegation, pointed out that they were the only ones who received information on the process on an owner-occupier basis and that the majority of their colleagues were also unaware of it.

They claimed that even though they had paid all the required amounts—N4.7 million, N6 million, and more—the institution’s administrators, acting Director of Works Abdulrahman Tukur Usman of Kaduna Polytechnic, a consultant with PIC Nura Usman, and a person named Gimba Elisha, had divided up and sold their land to people who weren’t employees of the school without depositing the proceeds into a government account.

Abdulrahman Usman, who spoke for the school on behalf of Dr. Suleiman Umar, the Rector, lied about knowing Nura Usman, but he soon changed his mind and admitted to knowing him after being reminded of the repercussions of lying to the committee under oath.

The committee committed to conducting additional research by visiting the contested Kaduna Polytechnic location.