The management of the Alvan Ikoku Federal University of Education AIFUE, Owerri has laid off 14 of its contract security staff.
The Chief Security Officer CSO of the university, Dr Moses Ajeka disclosed this on Wednesday, October 23, 2024 in a telephone interview with our correspondent.
Dr. Ajeka, a retired police officer said the affected contract security staff were given the boot for showing high level of "unseriousness, playing truancy, disobedience to constituted authority and absenting themselves from work".
He said; "Recently, I summoned a meeting during which I made it clear to them that once you are charged with the responsibility of protecting life and property that it is better you lose your life while protecting that of others.
"I also made it clear to them that I am here to retool the security architecture of the university. Before it was a college of education but now a university which all shades of character will flood the university.
"You can't post someone, a security staff to man a section of the university, you can't find him there. I told that anything that got missing in your area of duty, you will be held responsible."
He refuted report that the sack was a witch-hunt, saying that some of affected staff were given three or two queries for dereliction of duty.
Dr Ajeka said; "Nobody is witch-hunting anybody. At my age, some of them should be my children. Can I sit on top and at same sit at the bottom. You post a security staff to a duty post and you don't find him there. He fails to report to the duty post.
"You ask him to put on his uniform, he refuses. If he is not proud of his job, why did he accept it in the first place?
"Again, these people were contract staff. They were paid from IGR Internally Generated Revenue. They are aware of terms of their engagement".
Recall that Alvan Ikoku Federal University of Education started in 1963 as an advanced teachers training college. In 2015, the former President Good luck Ebere Jonathan converted it to a university of education but his successor President Muhammadu Buhari put the conversion 'on hold'
In 2023 shortly after taking over from Buhari, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu removed the 'on hold' to make the conversion to a university of education a reality.
