Police Arrests The Delta State Polytechnic Rector, Deputy And 17 Lecturers Over Burning Of Institution's Exams And Record Office

Following the mysteri-ous fire that gutted the exams and record of-fice of the Delta State Poly-technic, Ogwashi-Uku, in the Aniocha South Local Government Area of the state, police is said to have allegedly quizzed the rector of the institution, Dr. Edna Mogekwu, and her deputy.
Our correspondent reliably gathered that the inci-dent, which occurred at the early hours of June 23, 2012, also saw the arrest of 17 lecturers of that polytech-nic including the chapter chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), Dr. Nelson Ogonwa, by the police at Ogwashiuku.

The inferno, which lasted several hours, led to the loss of students’ documents, transcripts, students’ personal files as well as results, among other vital academic documents, and was the second fire outbreak in less than two months after the com-mencement of the second semester, after the burning of the part-time study de-partment.

The incident, our cor-respondent gathered, may have instigated severe in-ternal crisis between ASUP and management of the in-stitution and, as at the time of filing this report, investigations were said to have commenced into the mat-ter by the law enforcement agency and other investiga-tive panels to look into the circumstances that might have led to the fire outbreak and bring the perpetrators to book.

Addressing a press con-ference on Friday at the school compound shortly after a meeting with the institution’s rector, the na-tional president of ASUP, Dr. Chibuzo Asomugha, stated that, following a distress call the union had no option than to intervene into the matter.

“We were invited by the chairman, there was a distress call and that was why we came and we interacted with the chief executive of the place. We were called here to interact with the rector on the matter of arrest and we understand that it was a police routine check and even the rector told us that she had been severally quizzed alongside several members of the in-stitution by the police. Inci-dentally, there are so many other people that are going to be quizzed, according to the police.”

Also speaking, Ogonwa told Journalists how 17 members of the academic staff union of the polytech-nic, including him, were arrested by the police in connection with the fire incident.

“When something affects 17 members of the union, it is no longer a local issue; it becomes a national issue most especially when the chairman of the union and the deputy rector of the institution were among those arrested, it was on that basis the union deemed it fit to inform the national leadership, which reacted promptly by coming to know what was wrong.”