Google Speech-to-Text API Automatic Transcription (Chirp). Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:07a of of there's not, I mean, all of the other part stations are owned by individuals, except the ones that by Niger delta power holding company limited, which is
00:00:10jointly owned by all the, I mean by the
00:00:13of federation, all the states, the federal government
00:00:15and so on and so forth, but there are so many power plants now, so
00:00:18privatization will eventually um catch up on
00:00:22us, okay, but also remember
00:00:25of that that will happen when the sector is
00:00:29of more productive. when the sector becomes more productive,
00:00:33people will be encouraged to come and set up power plants, today lot of
00:00:37people are setting up mini grids all over the the country,
00:00:41of you know and and they supply uh local areas, so
00:00:44yes
00:00:46of privatization will happen um and then don't forget
00:00:49of that even in in in in other countries when you when you
00:00:53build um solar power plant for your
00:00:56house
00:00:57of you can sell the excess that you don't need to
00:01:00of the of grid,
00:01:02me you know, either to the local grid or to the national grid, um,
00:01:06I'm one of those people who think that we need a national grid, every
00:01:10country needs a national grid, and most
00:01:13of of the countries we come we like to cite as examples, they have national
00:01:16grid, the only state in the US that didn't have national grid, when
00:01:20they had a problem, they suffered lot, you know,
00:01:24I think it was uh, Texas, yes, they had a
00:01:28problem, so we we, we have to go
00:01:32now uh engineer is
00:01:35fellow academy of engineering and chartered
00:01:39institute of power engineers and by the way is
00:01:42also uh LPC chifting right? yes I am,
00:01:46I'm also president worldwide University of Locus alumni association.
00:01:50thank you, thank you indeed for your take one
00:01:52of them from time to time and
00:01:54of invite
00:01:54you to come
00:01:55and speak about no problem. thank you. all right so we take a
00:01:58of very quick break and when we come back all of you that um you
00:02:02saw the
00:02:03of story during the week about um the king's college,
00:02:06it's time to hear from you know the people in the thick of
00:02:10things, not horses, people,
00:02:12we right
00:02:15of back,
00:02:18of bring
00:02:21it
00:02:26in on, like...
00:02:32of
00:03:00take a look
00:03:00of at of me now, take a look at me
00:03:04now, i'm running things in this time, can't you
00:03:08see? i don't care who you are, where you
00:03:12from, what you do, just as long
00:03:15as you chasing money, do what's right, never give up
00:03:19on it, bring it on, bring it on, are you
00:03:22ready, no matter how you try, don't
00:03:26you ever fall, keep your head up high and standing
00:03:36of
00:03:41of
00:03:54of
00:03:55not me easy so much huzzling and buzzling everyone is struggling so make you
00:03:59no they believe. say since everyone is changing
00:04:02of you never gna make it never say no never
00:04:06give up keep your head up standing down and
00:04:10for show you it up
00:04:14condom
00:04:17toxic we don't go
00:04:20bl share them the
00:04:22of see us now we don't the
00:04:24of glow of take a look at
00:04:28of me now take a look at me now running things
00:04:32in this
00:04:34of time, can't you see i don't care who
00:04:37of you are, where you from, what you do, just as
00:04:41long as you're chasing money, do what's right, never give
00:04:45up on
00:04:47of it,
00:04:52okay, okay, okay, okay, i'm trying to sound like, what's that guy's
00:04:56name, um, that american comedian, but i know sound
00:04:59a like
00:04:59of yourself like as usual, I'm
00:05:01not a comedian, yes, in the
00:05:05course
00:05:08of of the week,
00:05:08of um, your me said, we survived the week, we did, but we also saw
00:05:11you know protest. from, it is part the survivor, we coming to you,
00:05:15it's part the survivor, okay, the federal government has
00:05:19suspended the planned concession of kings
00:05:22college, lagos, one of its unity
00:05:25schools, for two weeks following
00:05:29intense resistance from parents, teachers and labour
00:05:32unions, the minister of education announced
00:05:36a two weeks suspension the agreement to allow
00:05:40newly formed seven member committee. which includes labor
00:05:43representatives to review and uh negotiate the
00:05:47terms, but despite government
00:05:50assurances, groups like the
00:05:54national union of teachers, the key stakeholders
00:05:57and local protesters continue to storm the
00:06:00legos campus, they argue that they take over
00:06:04by um all students set a dangerous president that
00:06:08could lead to commercialization across
00:06:11all 104 unity
00:06:14colleges in Nigeria, for another rumor that I heard
00:06:17was some people are saying that um
00:06:21they are going to the
00:06:25school and saying no it's our is
00:06:29our land king's college of which
00:06:32year not it should just remain as
00:06:34anyway two people are joining us this
00:06:38morning um yes we have uh the...
00:06:43CEO, King's College Old boys Association
00:06:46Secretariat, Dr. Chukue meka
00:06:48azinge,
00:06:52and um, we are expecting, right, ex official, but
00:06:56we have Dr. Chuk here, good morning, good to have you this
00:07:00morning to be here, now let me just ask you straight, yes, have you
00:07:04guys taken over King's college, absolutely not, okay,
00:07:08and that's you know, in fact a lot the
00:07:11protests. things that you've seen during the course
00:07:15the week is really born out of misinformation and
00:07:18disinformation. what has simply happened here is what you
00:07:22could term a management transition. king's
00:07:26college has not been sold, king's
00:07:29college has not been privatized, it's just
00:07:33simply been handed over to passionate old
00:07:37boys to manage and run. many
00:07:40questions around that one, but we'll come to... just to quick to quickly
00:07:44recognize Dr. Adenie Gano Edwin who is an
00:07:47ex-official uh association of senior
00:07:50civil servants of Nigeria,
00:07:51he joins us from K. Thank you so much for joining us this
00:07:54morning sir, uh we can't
00:07:58hear you, you could kindly unmute, but while you're doing that Dr.
00:08:01Azinge, um, you are CEO, yes
00:08:04of King's College Old Association, secretariat,
00:08:08the secretariat, yes, we have a president the association itself. i'm
00:08:12just the ceo the secretariat so
00:08:14the central hub okay, i thought they used to have executive
00:08:17secretary, but now you are CEO, mean this is heritage
00:08:21institution, it sounds like it sounds like
00:08:24business, no it's not a business, it's not a
00:08:28business, it's just old boys who are passionate about their alma mata,
00:08:32okay, and when you look into the meaning of arma mata, it's more of beloved
00:08:35mother, the mother that trains children should be taken care of and should not
00:08:39be watched you know just die away and Okay, okay,
00:08:43so at sorry, at what points did the um, old boys
00:08:47think that the school is not been run well and
00:08:51they need to take over for it to be okay, so now this is not a takeover,
00:08:55because we need to be very careful about the term, okay, but I want emphasize
00:08:59that since time immemorial, the old boys have made
00:09:02series of interventions across various facets
00:09:06the school, even when we celebrated our
00:09:10centenary in 2009, "there was
00:09:13almost, should I say, 500
00:09:16million naira pord into general renovation, which should be about
00:09:20five to six billion naira when you think about the value
00:09:24today, but once these renovations are
00:09:27completed, within little or no time, it's back to
00:09:31the same level of decay. I can't tell you the amount of time, for instance the
00:09:35old boys have renovated the assembly hall, the old boys have even put
00:09:39water sprinklers under you, underneath the field to you water it."
00:09:42you and been ensure it's green, we've just renovated renovated to world class
00:09:46standard, the basketball court, and we've done this across both
00:09:50campuses, both the um, the campus at TBS onigo and the one in Victoria
00:09:53Island, but like I said, once this is done a little or no time,
00:09:57it goes back to the same level their
00:10:00election, have able to track Hawaii, so that's the problem, and we all know that perhaps you
00:10:04know managing things in these parts has always been an issue, so
00:10:08we are now saying that we want a situation whereby
00:10:12We're not just throwing away these funds so to speak, we want to able to see that
00:10:16it's sustainable, both the infrastructure and both the
00:10:20sustainability the college. If you go to the college today, the
00:10:24level of infrastructure. decay is
00:10:26unimaginable, just last year a student died of
00:10:29diptheria in the school, mean that made headlines at the time,
00:10:33and that just shows you the health and safety concerns. most of those
00:10:37buildings anybody who's in in the building sector that look will not be able
00:10:41to stand the test of, solid or time or whatever you want to call
00:10:45it, and we're saying to ourselves, we appreciate that there are
00:10:49many stakeholders in this discourse, there's no question about it,
00:10:53but you see just like, custody
00:10:56battle that involves a child, the courts
00:11:00want to ask one major question, what is that question,
00:11:04what is in the best interest the child? the
00:11:08parents of that child are stakeholders, aunties are stakeholders, there a lot of
00:11:12st, but they caught us interest
00:11:13what is in the best the child, and if we
00:11:16draw parallels from that and ask ourselves that
00:11:20in this case, what is the best interest the king's man, and by king's
00:11:24man mean current. students and potential students. okay, let
00:11:27ask Dr. um, Edwin,
00:11:31uh, particularly, I hope you
00:11:33have been listening to uh, Dr. Zinge,
00:11:37uh, profes some these conversations, especially because
00:11:41people are wondering, what exactly um is the
00:11:44issue and what are the fears of your
00:11:47association?
00:11:51thank you very much, I appreciate, I hope you can hear me clear. We can hear
00:11:55you,
00:11:57please go, beautiful, I appreciate this invitation,
00:12:01and quickly, let me respond to
00:12:05Dr. Azingu's statement, the one
00:12:08he made earlier on, and just like I
00:12:12said it yesterday, using
00:12:15misinformation and disinformation is
00:12:19to drag wood over the eyes of lot of people who
00:12:23are in
00:12:23the no - as matter of fact, the taken
00:12:27over is not now, it's actually
00:12:30started as far back as
00:12:321978, when the then
00:12:36president military head of state obasenjo went to
00:12:39dogbulu and the toyed with a bit
00:12:43the idea of taking over, in fact is not just the old
00:12:47boys, the
00:12:50PTA2, private individuals and lot of
00:12:54things. so what's the
00:12:57concerned stakeholders are saying, it's
00:13:01not, it's not about misinformation, that's that's
00:13:05disingenious to state that. again, let me quickly
00:13:09respond again to uh
00:13:12the analogy or the metaphorical
00:13:15description of mother, so do you say that your
00:13:19mother gave birth to you, she was beautiful when she gave
00:13:23birth to you, she was young,
00:13:25agile and nurtured you,
00:13:29you attain success, you got everything right,
00:13:33then while she was growing old, she's becoming frail,
00:13:36she's no longer agile, and then the
00:13:39best compensation is for you to come back and marry
00:13:43her so that you can take care of her, that's wrong,
00:13:47because as your mother who had fed you,
00:13:51nurtured you and taken care of you, you can come back and
00:13:55on her, still not necessarily
00:13:58taking
00:13:59her over, so concerning the unit school, just like I said, it started in
00:14:031978, unfortunately in 2006,
00:14:07it also read the ugly head,
00:14:11giving the same excuses and different excuses. Permit me to
00:14:15quickly read that after
00:14:162006, um, the struggle to
00:14:20Nigerians who are aware will remember, it was tough struggle, like I
00:14:24said, fortunately is too early to start this
00:14:27because we lost prominent Nigerians during that
00:14:31struggle. Am Machido died in the
00:14:34ill-fitted
00:14:35ADC the
00:14:39crash and not only him, he lost his
00:14:42son, lost his grandson in the struggle for
00:14:46government the Den
00:14:48President not to do this,
00:14:52so after when Jonathan.
00:14:56just all
00:14:57Chief we the Feding, historical
00:14:58um, to while understand background,
00:14:58be we clear, just want to speak to the core
00:15:01issues today, now,
00:15:05um, chief, Dr. Azinge is saying,
00:15:09the old boys have been pouring money into this institution,
00:15:13he also cited instance where in 2009, when
00:15:17the school turned 100, the old boys put in
00:15:21about 500 million nair, and there is repetitive. thing that
00:15:25he said, and I like you to speak to that, the fact that every
00:15:28investment to give face leave to the
00:15:32infrastructure the school have always dialed down back to
00:15:36square one and... of course at the core of
00:15:39it are the people who are managing the infrastructure and all of that, so what would
00:15:43you, do you have response to that? i will respond to
00:15:47that, but permit me to read the report and exact the
00:15:51report that uh senator zinguina
00:15:54wrote in 2009, permit me to read an exam from
00:15:57it, he say funding appears to be the single most
00:16:01important factor in the unity colleges, some
00:16:04stakeholders see the maintenance the... colleges as
00:16:08expensive and wasteful and have been calling for their
00:16:11privatization. the fact is that national integration is so
00:16:15important that we cannot place limit to the cost of sustaining
00:16:19it. those complaining about the cost of national integration should
00:16:23reflect on the comparative cost of national
00:16:26disintegration. presently the institutions
00:16:30sustaining integration in Nigeria, the NYC, the federal
00:16:34unity colleges and federal departments and agency stff
00:16:37all over the country, we should therefore not take this effort for granted, but
00:16:41must continue to sustain and encourage their growth and expansion, having stated
00:16:45clearly, having stated
00:16:47that clearly, let us now go back to king's college old
00:16:51students pouring money there,
00:16:54we have told them that investing, returning
00:16:58to society that b to you is fantastic,
00:17:01but why don't you in the first
00:17:05place look at other?
00:17:08approaches you can use, one is
00:17:12establish or establish body
00:17:16that when you put infrastructure idea
00:17:19then employee or monitor setup a
00:17:23committee that will look at look and manage and
00:17:26operate and donate this
00:17:29infrastructure to the school, that's number
00:17:32one, number two, i think old boys is just
00:17:36celebrating what is happening every where and I raised an
00:17:39example
00:17:41of um Raymon
00:17:44Secondary School in Shagamu, you need to
00:17:48check the state of that school 20 years ago
00:17:52to the state the school presently. It will surprise
00:17:56you that his
00:17:57royalest of
00:18:01Shagamu is an old boy of that
00:18:05school and they are investing so much current. when they make their 80th
00:18:08anniversary a world standard stadium
00:18:12stadium was built and donated to the school and set
00:18:16up people who will manage it, so okay, if king's college
00:18:20are complaining of investing, they are not,
00:18:24dr. edwin, i hear you and i'd like us to to be very
00:18:27crisp so that we can get all the answers as quickly as
00:18:31possible, you want to respond to particularly that point you made
00:18:35about not necessarily as you
00:18:38said, taking over, and
00:18:40you say, I put it in quotes, it's
00:18:41not taking over, but he used the word takeover, but
00:18:44rather get the infrastructure there and get a system to manage it, but
00:18:48then he's just stating what has happened, strangely enough, and this is why
00:18:52we
00:18:52know with all you respect, I do again asset the misinformation and
00:18:56disinformation, he's talking about a takeover, there has been no
00:18:59takeover, public, the the institution remains
00:19:03public in character and in ownership, it's still...
00:19:07federal government property, the agreement
00:19:11itself protects the assets the institution, the
00:19:15agreement itself protects the federal
00:19:17character the institution, we just cannot come to an
00:19:21admissions policy that is against and all lords and
00:19:25against the federal character principle, and again the federal government
00:19:29reserves the right to say, we want our property back if they feel we're not
00:19:33doing the right thing, now he talks about
00:19:36managing, money in and manage, well that's what I just said when I
00:19:40came here, it is a management transition, so that's all
00:19:44we're doing, we're managing that infrastructure that we will be
00:19:47providing such that it doesn't get to the state of disrepair, their
00:19:51election and decay on here now, that's what it
00:19:55is, it's a management transition managing infrastructure, of course we're going to
00:19:59be managing the school and infrastructure is one the elements, yes because
00:20:03I'm really interested in knowing what you know it covers this
00:20:07management. Yes, um, would you be, what would
00:20:10you be, it covers the whole remit, because the the federal government is taking its
00:20:14hands off, and we're coming in, manager,
00:20:17so um, you can decide, I mean,
00:20:21your secretariat can decide how much the school will pay,
00:20:25uh, the students will pay, and every other, but all these are
00:20:29protected by the agreement itself, the fees can never be, no, I just want to know,
00:20:33like you, you would have to decide that within the remits
00:20:36the agreement.
00:20:50and this is an important crucial point where it can be termed a private
00:20:53institution. now I just want to state this, myself and the
00:20:57last year engineer fader was just we were just discussing that says he
00:21:00is alumni of government college Ibado which has also been taken
00:21:04over by the old boys, management now I mean under the
00:21:08leadership of Dr. Wali Babalaki, and this is a model anybody
00:21:12can go and investigate, it's working, they have not increased fees
00:21:16at all, and the infrastructural renovation has been,
00:21:20immense, so it's already there, it's a
00:21:23prototype and a specimen that can be investigated, we're not coming
00:21:27to do anything that has not been done before, government college umahya
00:21:31is the same story, the old boys have taken have taken over the
00:21:35management the school, so we are now saying we
00:21:39approach the federal government, we appreciate there's a lot on your
00:21:42plate, in fact there's an argument that you know secondary schools don't
00:21:46fall directly within the remit the federal government, it's more of tear.
00:21:50institutions, so since we are passionate, it's a two-year
00:21:53process by
00:21:54the way, it was not, there was no clandestine operation, we
00:21:58went there, we sort you know the necessary
00:22:01approvals, icrc process, fec approval, we went through
00:22:05due process and we were granted this management
00:22:09agreement, where the unions aware of this, of course, of course, i had meetings
00:22:13with the union, mean i had meetings even with you, your guest on this show,
00:22:17in terms of his body and the king old boys association. of course there were disagreements
00:22:21and that's another thing I think we need to narrow
00:22:25into, it's one thing to say you were not
00:22:28consulted at all. It's another thing to say
00:22:31during consultations you did not agree with the other side's
00:22:35position and thereby you are unhappy as to the
00:22:39outcome, and I think that is being confused here, because
00:22:42indeed I dare acert that there was stakeholder
00:22:46consultation with teachers, with union members, they may not always have agre.
00:22:50with the position, but there were consultations, and again, there
00:22:53seems to be some sort of a premise that every level of
00:22:57consultation must have happened before the management, you
00:23:01know, transition was approved, stakeholder consultation
00:23:05is an ongoing process, we need all stakeholders on the
00:23:08table, we will continue to need all stakeholders on the table, and I
00:23:12do hope that this two weeks suspension gives us the opportunity
00:23:16to engage in reasonable discourse, okay? divated
00:23:20again by the best interest the child. Dr. Edwin,
00:23:24um, you have heard him and I'm sure you have some responses to
00:23:28it. Um, what exactly are the fears of
00:23:31your union, because I'm sure that there are other interests, other
00:23:35stakeholders in the process. What are the fears of your own union
00:23:38as far as this transition that Dr. Azinge is talking
00:23:42about are concerned? Yeah, thank you
00:23:46very much. Um, responding. quickly
00:23:50to him,
00:23:52you know, is that first and foremost, if
00:23:55you are planning a project that affects the whole
00:23:59nation, you don't hide your
00:24:03document in secrecy, you don't shroud it in
00:24:07secrecy,
00:24:12you don't, you don't shroud uh, the documents you are
00:24:16presented to the public in secrecy and
00:24:20if you look at the
00:24:23association, it is under the umbrella where
00:24:26the education officers who are working in these various schools
00:24:30belong, and we are not just concerned
00:24:33about the the how it affect Nigeria, you
00:24:37are so concerned about how it affects the workers, then like
00:24:41I, like
00:24:42I said, let tell Dr. Asinge
00:24:45that the union has seen has interrogated.
00:24:50with the document they initially presented, if you are
00:24:54saying that it is not a takeover, your
00:24:57paragraph 2.2, you want to get
00:25:01all the acillary property, your paragraph in your in
00:25:05your in your document, your paragraph
00:25:093.2, you claim that you want this
00:25:13arrangement to be perpetually
00:25:15renewable, so it means that and then you want to
00:25:19first self 35 years, that's the first instance, 35
00:25:23years, and it should be perpetually renewable, at the end
00:25:27the day you have taken over. I want to ask, look at
00:25:30me, you think by by by
00:25:3435 years to this time, lot of us who are even arguing this, we still be
00:25:38around, but okay, you think it's
00:25:41futuristic, but we are saying that you are denying
00:25:45Nigerians from having access to
00:25:49quality. education so these are these are the
00:25:53fears and then don't compare the
00:25:56the the school to this unity school
00:26:00is meant for national integration. is national
00:26:03asset, but it's probably a
00:26:05state, it's a state school,
00:26:09when it started, and so they don't, they don't go the
00:26:13same way, and I want to appeal to you sir, why
00:26:17you have the media, you the money and everything, please make
00:26:21whatever you are doing transparent, it is very
00:26:24essential, and that is when the distrusts
00:26:28you are bringing can go away already, it
00:26:32is like the government and the king's
00:26:35college are already together in this and you're leaving the
00:26:39people, the the whatever we affect people, we are leaving them to their
00:26:43feet. i think this is not good enough, like i have
00:26:46said, yes, the
00:26:50meetings before in terms of you know the
00:26:53discussions ahead of this
00:26:55concession,
00:26:58pardon, where you or your association part of?
00:27:03any the meetings? god would that,
00:27:06that's a very fantastic question. the king's college old
00:27:10boys association had already completed their
00:27:14mou, their agreement, everything about
00:27:18it, it was at the at the point of
00:27:21implementation that led to
00:27:25to hes and cries that they now feel they are carrying people
00:27:29along, how can you put the horse, how can you put the... before
00:27:33the horse. okay, let let's
00:27:34say Dr. Azinge respond to that. Dr. Azinge, were they
00:27:38at what point he is saying you know it was almost done and
00:27:41dusted, he just came to tell them what. So,
00:27:45I mean,
00:27:46you know, I would not want to come across as labelling
00:27:49anyone as you know, pushing falsehood, but we
00:27:53did have a meeting in the office the federal
00:27:57minister, they had read our agreements from the
00:28:00start or you know. when so you see there's
00:28:04a difference between secrecy and privacy and we must draw
00:28:08that distinction, this is something that we
00:28:11conceived and were focused on the children, we had to get our
00:28:15act together before we begin to say, okay, stakeholders
00:28:19here, this is what we have, let's come to discuss it. at
00:28:23the point we had the meeting, there was no approval, which is the point, so it's it
00:28:27wasn't, it wasn't a done deal any way shape or form, the
00:28:31issue is that they wanted something fundamentally
00:28:34different from what the old boys were chasing, which was,
00:28:37which to our mind, which was the same thing of just come pour money in, do an
00:28:41mou, no real management, no real oversight, and we've done that
00:28:45before, like I'd explained, so they even brought a
00:28:49response document to show you how involved they were, and
00:28:52they tagted mou a subsequent
00:28:55meeting, so you see they were now series of meeting, the first meeting, then the second
00:28:59meeting, and
00:29:00you know we didn't necessarily agree with that document, because we had our firm
00:29:03purpose and their purpose and our purpose at that
00:29:07point didn't seem to our line, so you know
00:29:11we moved ahead and we continue to consult. so my
00:29:15point here is there was no time we have been averse to
00:29:19stakeholder consultation, and that is why i make the point again that this
00:29:22is an ongoing process and even for this concession management
00:29:26transition, whatever terminology we choose to use to be successful, it
00:29:30must be born out of a continuing st. engagement and one
00:29:34point I need to add is the idea of unity schools, unity
00:29:38school, king's college remains a unity school, it is so
00:29:41critical to old boys in this process that it must be a unity
00:29:45school, lot of people who have benefited from this college
00:29:49is because it was a unity school, so we would definitely never change that
00:29:53fundamental character, and that is protected by the agreement itself,
00:29:57will the old boys be willing to
00:30:01um maybe yes, be a part
00:30:04the school, but not you know be
00:30:08the let me let me look at the the management
00:30:12transition that you mentioned, like like, okay, this is,
00:30:15because while you were there, there was no old boy, you know, or
00:30:19old boys association taking over the management transition
00:30:23or the management the school, there were people, there were
00:30:27people, is it okay if because the huw and
00:30:31cry, is it okay, if the old boys association secretariat
00:30:35would say, okay, we can work with the people there who
00:30:39are managing or who have been managing the the school
00:30:42work with them closely without having so that everyone
00:30:46who's concerned, the parents, the teachers who think,
00:30:50oh, down the line, and from what he's saying, we haven't seen the document,
00:30:54but he quoted saying that, is something that uh, is more or
00:30:58less.