Merchant Navy Condemns Caretaker Committee At MAN, Oron

 The Merchant Navy Officers and Water Transport Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, has condemned the compositing of an  Interim Management Committee on the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN), Oron, by the Minister of Transportation; Mr Rotimi Amaechi.
The association maintained that the action is against the guidelines and the Act establishing the institution.
President of the association, Engr. Matthew Alalade disclosed this in a chat with newsmen in Lagos.
He also blamed the Minister for appointing a Rector for the institution instead of appointing a  Vice-Chancellor for the institution following the passage of a bill by the National Assembly for the upgrading of the academy into a University.
He said, “the school has been upgraded to a University status, I don’t know why the same government is coming up with appointment of acting Rector. However, from the Act, appointment of who becomes the Rector should be for somebody who have been there and such a candidate must have served for an upward of 15 years as a senior instructor or lecturer or must have attained a Director position. You cannot just pick anybody from anywhere to be a Rector in an academic institution like MAN Oron"
“The government must toe the line of integrity, if the Minister of Transportation deemed it fit that the guidelines must not be followed, he should have find a way to ease out the former administration of the institution out and then follow the procedure"
He maintained that the committee should have found a way to transit the academy to university.
“What the Minister should have done is to set machinery in motion to graduate that institution to a University status. The fact finding committee set up by the Minister should have fine-tune how to transit the institution from Polytechnic to University status, now that they are dwelling on Rector rather than talking about Vice-Chancellor, it is confusing”
Engineer Alalade faulted the transmutation of the fact finding committee to an interim management committee to implement its own recommendations, describing it as lacking transparency.
Speaking further he said, "unfortunately, it is not a good omen for the students there and for the host community. I know the students must have been in disarray now. They don’t know what to do now. I know the activities in that institution will be very low now. So, it is unfortunate that a ministry which supposed to midwife and to see to a peaceful atmosphere of that institution is aiding crisis in the institution"
“There at Abuja, they don’t know what is happening, but the students there, I believe they are in disarray now. The government will have to step in fast so that things will not deteriorate because the communities are agitating that they should follow the procedure" he concluded.
He reiterated that as an International Maritime Organization (IMO)-accredited institution, it was wrong to bring politicians to manage it, arguing that the professionals should be allowed to manage the affairs of the school since IMO has its own standard which they use to measure institutions like that.