Dr Doshiro Umar Musa is a brutally honest, uncompromisingly pungent and in-your-face kind of truth vendor when dealing with issues. He lacks the capacity to vacillate or paly hanky-panky with serious issues that have multilevel consequences on lives and systems. He is a member of the Governing Council of the Federal Polytechnic of Oil and Gas (FPOG), Bonny, Rivers State, Nigeria.

On one of the Council’s visits to the Polytechnic, he responded to questions from the Publisher of Kristina Reports, Godswill Jumbo, bordering on why the Polytechnic dived into an almost moribund status with the management and administrative situation of the institution almost comatose. In his characteristic manner, he took the questions head on with a firm promise that current Governing Council was here to make things right and get the institution out of the doldrums. Read the excerpts….

Kristina Reports: There are insinuations that there were irregularities with payment of salaries in the Polytechnic…

Doshiro Umar Musa: What’s the issue in paying them? Federal Government cannot condone that. So, how can anybody come and tell you that the Governing Council has connived with the management and ate salaries of people and that is why they were not paid. We have confirmed direct withdrawal of funds meant for that place, generated by that place and eaten by somebody.

There is this insinuation that the Governing Council imposed the acting Rector on the Polytechnic to do their bidding, is this true?

Imagine! Now somebody is saying it is the Governing Council that appointed Mrs. Ibifiri (Pollyn). We didn’t appoint her. It was the former Rector that presented her to us when we told him to recommend people to us. When we told him to give us three chief lecturers to choose from, he said he has only this woman and we said go and bring her CV. He brought it. He was in the Council when we assessed her CV. He was in the Council when we made her to face us and we gave her questions, academic questions, which she answered in his presence including her pet project which she submitted to the Rivers State Ministry of Education and she was applauded for that. Interestingly, she is an indigene of this place. She didn’t come from Nasarawa with me or from Yobe with Engr. Deng Shehu or from Lagos with Adebayo or from Ajide’s place. These are the Council members. I hope you understand or from Ogun State with Seyi. It was here we met her. He was the one that recommended her and we checked her CV along with others and we appointed her.

Can you confirm that there were irregularities with appointments in the Polytechnic?

Yeah, let me tell the whole world today and now that all the people that call themselves directors in this place none of them has a letter appointing him as director; meaning ‘go, I have appointed you. If you cannot do the things to my whims and caprices, I will remove you because you don’t have any instrument appointing you into office’. Interview all of them, Director of Physical Planning is here, ask him whether he has any letter appointing him to that office. Director of Works is here, ask him whether he has a letter appointing him to that office and whether he is enjoying any allowance since his deployment there.

Is there any step being taken now to regularize it?

Of course, that is exactly what we are doing that people are not happy with and we told them we invited the National Business and Technical Examinations Board (NABTEB) to come and do staff/board audit because of ineptitude and maladministration and they did. I hope you understand the report is now being discussed. It was the Ministry of Education that directed them to set up the committee. The committee came and did their work and they checked and the bulk of staff this man appointed were junior staff who cannot add value. I hope you understand. For a higher institution of this nature, if you are doing employment, priority should be given to the lecturers because the name of the polytechnic can only be upheld when you have quality graduands and you can only have quality graduands when you have quality lecturers. At a point, somebody told us in Council that Bonny Island has no graduates. We went out of our way and discovered that there are so many doctorate degree holders in Engineering, so many doctorate degree holders in Electrical/Electronics, and several other fields; but because somebody is afraid of being challenged, he decided to take mediocres and put them as lecturers.

One thing that is bothering some people is that a federal institution of this nature has a functional account…

Yes

So, why did it take this long? Good. At a point, before our coming in as a Council, there were managements here, there was a Council; the man used divide and rule to break their ranks. I hope you understand. So, the former Council completed their tenure in disarray and he made it to be in such a way that the falcon cannot hear the falconer. And by that, what will come into the place is anarchy. So, he created the anarchy to the extent that the former Council Chairman, who was a distinguished Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and who is still holding a very high political position in this country had to resign out of frustration. The person they gave to act is from Yobe. He is still in the university system. He, himself, got fed up and left out of frustration. When we came in as a Council, we decided that nobody can divide our ranks he drew me close to him and I told him my loyalty is to this Council and not to anybody; do the right thing. I convened three reconciliatory meetings in Abuja to reconcile him with the Council, he refused to attend. At a point the external auditors from Auditor General’s office described his administration as ‘a sole proprietorship’ administration. Now we took the bull by the horn and everybody is crying.