Sincerity will stop strikes - Rector

Alhaji Mas’ud Elelu

YIou have been at the helms of affairs for almost five years now, how’s been the journey so far?

I want to thank the almighty Allah for bringing us to this level, for the help, for the cooperation one has received in doing this job, it is by no means a herculean task and we are happy that we have come thus far. The judgment is before members of the press, the community and the entire people of Kwara State.

You have taken over the institution during a crisis between the staff union and the management which led to the closure of the institution for a long time, how were you able to restore peace into the polytechnic?

don’t think there is anything extraordinary about that. I came in with a purpose, a mission and of course my own plans. One of the plans which I had that time, which I still have is staff re-orientation and development to ensure that there is cooperation and understanding among my staff. And the cooperation and open-mindedness have within a short time made them develop a kind of interest and confidence in the administration. Having seen the confidence within a very few months, having seen that somebody has come with purposeful plans, there was no alternative than to cooperate and get the polytechnic moving.

So in summary, one has been able to achieve some relative peace because of the cooperation, because of the integrity, openness and style of the administration one has had. We were able to convince the staff that we would get to the point that they wanted us to get to at that time. They were fighting for CONTISS, now we have gone beyond CONTISS, we started by having 64 per cent CONTISS, 100 per cent CONTISS, from there to CONTEDISS and CONPCASS without any fighting. We thank God they saw reason with us.

How were you able to achieve the pay rise approved for the staff?

Like I said sincerity and integrity; we made everybody to know what the college has, what it gets in terms of funding, what is coming in from government, what is supposed to be our wage bill and how far we can go if we need to have another salary structure. So by and large it became an open secret to everybody to know the amount coming into the school, the amount government is giving us, and the amount we need to add to what government is giving us to be able to get to the point where we want to get to. When everybody saw that they all cooperated with us in moving the institution to a greater height. nd we now told the generality of staff that this is how far we can go and when we did that, the council also cooperated with us. Right now there is something we have developed which we pass to most staff and students; it is what we call pocket statistics. It is a one page thing that every staff and student will have. It graphically

Ashows what amount the students are paying, the amount we are collecting every year; the total amount we are spending on hostel, how much are we paying our staff, the amount we are spending on other areas and the amount that is remaining after all the expenditure. We call it pocket statistics; you can fold it and put it in your pocket. So the information goes out to everybody and people will cooperate with you because they are being carried along in running the institution.

You said the institution has not gone on strike for quite some time, how do you think we can put an end to this perennial strikes in our institutions?

There are quite a number of things. Everybody has a role to play- the staff, the institution’s community and the government.

The polytechnic was noted to have pioneered several inventions like the Keke Napep (tricycle), what are you doing to sustain this legacy?

We are moving forward in that, we have established what we call Technological Innovation and Development Centre to encourage people to do some innovations and develop them and machineries are there for our staff and students. We try as much as possible to expose our students to a lot of things and as a result of this, some of these employers have found our students very suitable, they have gone to compete with some other students in other schools and excelled for example in Dangote, Obajana, Coca Cola and so on.

What have been the challenges so far?

The challenges are enormous. I used to say that anybody who can manage a tertiary institution in a country like Nigeria can manage a mad man. The challenges are enormous- the challenges of funding, staff understanding you, the students and the challenges of even the community. Also another challenge is the increase in the number of students who want to come and study here. So this issue is giving us sleepless nights in choosing who to take, who not to take because we have limit and also our facilities are being overstretched.

Where do you see the polytechnic in the years ahead?

I can see Kwara State Polytechnic coming back to what it used to be. Quite a number of things are emanating from this school. I told you about conference marking, I told you about technological innovation and development centre, I told you about entrepreneurship, I told you about academic stability, these are things that would make the institution lead. In the next certain years to come, the polytechnic would be right there up.