Sequel to the students’ protest, the management of the Federal College of Education, FCE, Yola has announced the immediate closure of the school until further notice.
The Registrar, Gidado Ahmed, confirmed the closure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Tuesday in Yola.
Mr Ahmed said that the students were protesting against lack of water supply in their hostels.
“On Monday, the college management received a report that one of its industrial boreholes had broken down and immediately, the Works Department was directed to fix the problem within possible time.
“As a matter of emergency, the Provost directed the Department of Works to deploy water tankers to supply water to the students’ hostels pending the resolution of the problem.
“Also, the college had other medium boreholes as alternative water sources, but due to the large population of students, the management intensified efforts to fix the industrial borehole within 24 hours, to meet the students’ water demands,” he said.
The registrar said the protests came as a surprise to the management because the engineers were on top of the situation.
He said the college authorities had made several efforts to calm the students but to no avail, which necessitated the closure of the school.
“In order not to allow the situation to get out of control, the college authority summoned an emergency meeting.
“The institution management decided to close down the school in the interest of peace and stability of both the students and the college.
“The students were given the directive to leave the school so that hoodlums would not take advantage of the situation and cause havoc,” said.
According to him, the decision to close down the college is to avert breakdown of law and order.
Some students, however, kicked against the closure of the institution, describing it as unfortunate.
Moses Ibrahim and Jamilu Audu, both 300 level students, berated the management of the institution over the closure.
Similarly, Simon Mai Yaki and Yusuf Bala, who are both second year students of the college, equally blamed the management of the institution for negligence.
“Students’ hostels have been experiencing shortage of water supply for a long time,” they alleged.
NAN
