Management of the Federal Polytechnic, Ado Ekiti, has ordered the closure of the institution.
It also banned unionism in the school with immediate effect.
A statement by the Institution’s Director of Protocol, Information and Public Relations, Mr. Adeyemi Adejolu, in Ado Ekiti on Sunday said students were to go on a compulsory one week break.
He said that students would resume Nov. 10, adding that second semester examination would commence on Nov. 12.
Adejolu said the decision to shut the school was arrived at during an emergency joint meeting of the Academic Board and Management Committee held on Saturday.
Recall that students of the Polytechnic had staged a violent protest last Friday over alleged interference by management of the institution in the affairs of the Students’ Union Government, SUG.
The students claimed that the schools management has attempted to install its stooges as leaders of their union during its election held on Thursday.
During the protest, the students, besides disrupting normal academic activities by blocking all the gates leading to the institution for hours, also damaged some valuable facilities in the institution’s School of Engineering.
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Adejolu, on Sunday, however denied the students’ claims of interference against the authorities.
Calling the claims baseless, he insisted that management had nothing to gain from imposing candidates for students’ union election.
“The attention of management of the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, has been drawn to insinuations suggesting that the students’ protest of Friday, Nov. 1, 2019 was caused by an alleged imposition of candidates in the students’ union elections, which held the previous day.
“For the avoidance of any doubt, it has never been in the tradition of the institution’s management to impose candidates under any guise in the electoral process of all unions at the polytechnic.
“Also for over two decades now, students’ union electoral processes are run and conducted by the students themselves through their accredited representatives called APECO.
“The management only engages in monitoring the process by ensuring that the rules set for they set for themselves are strictly adhered to, under a well- secured atmosphere,” he said.
Adejolu said management was, therefore, surprised at the last unprovoked protest and unverified allegation of imposition of candidate.
The Polytechnic spokesman said an 11-man committee had been set up to look at the immediate and remote causes of the protest.
