The students of the institution, had in the past two weeks, embarked on protest around Offa township and had even approached the traditional ruler, Oba Mufutau Gbadamosi, the Olofa of Offa, to prevail on the management of the polytechnic to rescind its decision to cancel the waiver on examination usually granted to the final year students who failed some courses during the time they were in the school.
Other issues raised by the students during their protest to the Olofa last week Monday were the deplorable state of the hostels, lack of water and electricity in the hostels, waiving of carryovers, and allowing students who were yet to pay school fees to write examinations.
They argued that the school should allow the students to write examinations and withhold the results pending the payment of the fees.
During their protest, they vandalised vehicles belonging to staff members of the institution and caused traffic on Osogbo-Offa-Ilorin’s major road.
The Olofa, however, promised to speak with the management of the institution and also promised to provide a 500kva transformer to the institution’s hostels at the permanent site and its environs to provide a stable power supply.
Reacting to our correspondent’s inquiry on the protest, the Director of Media and Corporate Affairs of the Federal Polytechnic, Offa, Mr. Olayinka Iroye, who said that the students had taken the issues to prominent people in the area including the monarch, said that while the management had also taken proactive measures on some issues, the complaint of waiver for carryover examination could not be rescinded because it was an Academic Board decision.
“There is no going back on waiver for examination carryover because it is an Academic Board decision. The students’ protest on the issue is wrong and when something is wrong, there is no right solution to be provided to redeem it. Those that have carryover courses must sit and pass the examination before they could be qualified for the certificate of Federal Polytechnic, Offa.”
On the power outage and water supply to the hostels, Iroye said that the water supply was short because of poor electricity supply to the school and the high cost of diesel.
“We have about eight hostels in both temporary and permanent sites of the institution and all the hostels have boreholes that supply water to the students, but we have been experiencing irregular power supply and even in the town, this is responsible for poor water supply to the hostels.
“The school has been spending millions of naira on the purchase of diesel which the school could no longer cope with because of the high cost of diesel. The students pay only N20,000 per student as accommodation fee which can no longer be enough to meet the high cost of diesel.”
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