Protests rock FGC, Odogbolu in Ogun…as teachers call for removal of principal

THERE was confusion at the premises of the Federal Government College, Odogbolu, Ogun State, on Tuesday, as teachers protested against alleged highhandedness of the Principal, Mrs Bassey Duke.

Similarly, members of the Parents Teachers Association equally protested against poor condition of the school.

The teachers were reported to have ejected Duke from her official quarters some weeks back before she was summoned to Abuja.

The aggrieved teachers held a three-hour marathon prayer against the embattled principal.

Speaking with newsmen, Olayinka Agboola, who is the chairman of the teachers, said his members would not return to work until a new principal is posted to the school.

Some of the teachers who spoke on condition of anonymity alleged that Duke had bastardized the standard of education in the federal government owned the school.

In the same vein, PTA members also carried placards with inscriptions as “FGC Odogbolu requires urgent attention”, “FGC Odogbolu, our children are no more in the  classroom,” “FGC Odogbolu, stop playing politics with  our children’s future”  and “DBSE, FGC Odogbolu is on fire, please come to our rescue” among others .

The school PTA chairman, Idowu Abudu, recalled that the school had been experiencing crisis since last year November which resulted in the cancellation of the first term examination.

He said,  “They have a number of grouses against the principal. Some administrative, some personal, some in relations to the ad-hoc activities in the school. When they started the crisis, they started with duty-toll-allowance which has accumulated  over  the years and along the line we got involved as parents and we had to take up the payment of duty-toll-allowance to one million nine hundred and eighty thousand naira(N1,980,000)  to pay  these staff  and we thought that would douse the tension  and after the payment they still insisted that  that principal must leave .

“When we resumed for the second term, they started the agitation again and it got to extend that the principal was sent out of the quarters.

“And the director that visited promised that within two days they will sort things out, unfortunately up till today, we are just getting the information from the Director for  Basic Education that a  new principal will resume before the weekend, that is the situation.I think the crisis is over”.

The embattled principal when contacted failed to respond to call from newsmen.