ABHA receives petition over poor management of Government College Umuahia

The Abia State House of Assembly has received a petition over allegations of poor management of Government College Umuahia, Abia State.The deputy- speaker of the House, Hon Austin Okezie who read the petition on the floor of the House, said the House would investigate the petition.

Mr Chukwudi Onwudinanti, a former student of the school who wrote the petition lamented that the Government College Umuahia Old Boys Association (GCUOBA) which is currently managing the school has deviated from the original purpose of the school.

The petition addressed to the Speaker, Rt Hon Emmanuel Emeruwa signed on behalf of Onwudinanti by Ugochukwu Zik, a lawyer noted that the Abia State Government handed over the school to GCUOBA in July 2014 after signing a Memorandum of Understanding.

According to him, the college is now being run like a private school for the elites contrary to the purpose the state government envisioned when handling the school over to the new management.

Onwudinanti claimed the education being offered at the school is now beyond the reach of the majority of the people which is at variance with the original intention of the state government which seeks to make education accessible to all and sundry.

‘’As we speak, GCU’s

annual school fee is above N1million. The current controllers of the school have shut out brilliant children within Ibeku and Umuahia East Constituency from quality education.

‘’We reiterate that the Umuahia East State Constituency and Ibeku communities are landlords to GCU, and the school represents one of the noblest identities by which the Ibeku and Umuahia East State Constituency are respectively known.

‘’ What is more disheartening is that folks who have set up this new socio-economically ex-communicating structure would not have been able to attend GCU in their days based on the respective economic status of their families at the time of the original owners of the school had set up the present bourgeois system as is presently constituted, ‘’ he added.

Onwudinanti also raised alarm over the increased destruction of arcane and archival history, monuments, and traditions associated with GCU.

He pointed out that the conservative school uniform, pink and brown had been changed while some iconic school blocks such as the AD block had been left to deteriorate to the point of ruins.

‘’The speedy vandalisation of these archival assets runs contrary to the charge given by the Abia State Government to the Old boys to upgrade the school and not destroy it’’ he stated.

Hon Okezie who represents Umuahia East State Constituency, where the college is located disclosed that he has been bombarded with calls from his constituents over the situation the college has found itself.

‘’The standard of running the Government College Umuahia should be returned to what it used to be. It is more or less an elitist school now, which was not what it used to be during our time as students, ‘’ Okezie noted.

The Speaker, Rt Hon Emeruwa confirmed on his X Handle that the House of Assembly is already probing the petition.

He confirmed that the petition has been sent to a Joint Committee on Education and Public Petitions with the mandate to report back in three weeks.