Angry youths of Anwai Umuagwu near Asaba, the Delta state capital, yesterday, shutdown Dennis Osadebay University in protest against alleged unfavourable employment policy of the institution.
The protesters, numbering 100, barricaded the school’s entrance at about 9:00a.m. and prevented people from going in and leaving the campus.
They carried placards with various inscriptions such as: ‘Oghojafor corruption is personified’, ‘Oghojafor is autocratic and tribal bigot’, ‘We say no to Oghojafor’s gross misrule’, ‘Respect for the host community is sacrosanct’, among others.
The protest lasted for hours before security personnel, who manned the school gate, came to salvage the situation.
Speaking to journalists, Chairman, Asaba Community Employment Committee, Ndubuisi Biose, said the school authorities denied his people employment over the years, though the state government decided to immortalize their son, Dennis Osadebay with the university.
Biose claims that the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Ben Oghojafor, has been playing the ethnic card by employing his own people.
Also, the Youth President, Obodo Okediachi, said the communities are not happy with the situation at the University.
He said: “The university is our own, it is in our home. So, anything that is in your home, you are supposed to benefit from it. We the Asaba community are not benefitting from Osadebay University, which the government gave to us to compensate us on what we are suffering in this country.”
When contacted, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Ben Oghojafor, denied the allegation, saying, “The fact will speak for itself.”
Oghojafor said: “The figures of people employed will bear testimony to that fact that the allegation is not true.
“We employed people across Nigeria not only from the state because we are looking for the best.
“I had gone to the Asagba of Asaba to get people of Asaba extraction that can be employed in the university in relevant areas.
“Our people are educated but are not relevantly ‘educated’. How do you have people who just read one thing or the other and not prepared for post university employment?
“We take people as we have the need for them.
“If I am looking for accountants, I have to headhunt for accountants to come into the bursary and audit. If we are looking for engineers, we can’t get anybody, those you find have never worked before. The fact would speak for itself. That is a fallacy; let them bring the people who applied. Records don’t lie.
“Obi Elunor had threatened me even before I came in that I should go to Abraka and become the VC. I have written to the Department of State Services (DSS) and the state’s Commissioner of Police, and he was the one who led the demonstration today. So, I wish him well.”
