Minister decries King’s College infrastructure decay, seven-month blackout

The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, on Thursday, promised that the Federal Government will intervene to resolve the prolonged blackout at the King’s College located in the Tafawa Balawa Square area of Lagos.

 The minister made this known when he made an unannounced visit to the school around 7:30 am, with the staff members and students expressing surprise at the sight of the minister.

 This is as the management of King’s College also lamented a power debt of about N70m, which the school noted it could not raise by itself.

The minister, Alausa, who inspected the classrooms, hostel, science laboratories and other facilities in the school, expressed displeasure over the level of decadence that had happened in the buildings and the poor maintenance of the facilities and environment.

During his visit to the hostel, the room was dark as the college had been battling with a power outage due to the debt owed to the power company.

Before the arrival of the Principal, the Vice Principal, Shittu Y.S., gave reason for the darkness in many parts of the school including the hostel.

 “The light has been removed for the past eight months,” he told the minister.

While addressing the students later on the assembly ground after touring the college with the principal, Mogaji Zechariah, the teachers and other staff members, the minister promised a swift intervention in the power outage.

Alausa said, “I came in at 7:30 am; it was an announced visit; I wanted to see things the way they are. I’ve been around, to your classes, I went to your Chemistry, Physics, Biology and Technical drawing laboratories. I went to your ICT centre and dining room.

“I must say that the state of the facilities I’ve seen here is not what we want children like you to experience. The facilities are quite dilapidated. I’m making a promise to you now as your Minister for Education when I get back to Abuja, I’ll quickly look into this.

“I also note that you have not had sustainable electricity for almost seven months. Your school principal told me that the Lagos State Independent Power Supply that the school had enjoyed in the last several years was disconnected about seven months ago, and frantic effort has been made to connect to Eko Disco but it’s just been slow.

“Let me make it known to you now that that will be taken care of quickly. I’ve jumped on that. I’ve put a call to the chairman of Eko Disco while I was taking a tour. The chairman has promised to get you reconnected to the national grid as soon as possible.”

The minister expressed satisfaction with the quality of food being given to the students, as they confirmed with him.

However, some of the students, who spoke with our correspondent on condition of anonymity for fear of victimisation, lamented that the heat in their room was too much to bear at night due to the power outage.

“At night, there is heat, mosquitoes and bed bugs,” a student said.

“Sometimes there is no water. Sometimes we sleep in the corridor because there is heat in the room,” another student said.

“Our clothes are always rumpled because there is no light,” a boy also echoed.

Addressing the press in an interview, the minister also lamented the “extremely dirty” environment, particularly the classes that were littered.

“I have confronted the principal about this, and I know there is a huge infrastructural decay in the buildings that I saw. Those buildings were built decades ago and the good thing is they are still standing strong but they’re badly maintained.

“What we now need as a government is to move more resources to rehabilitate several of these buildings. This college is part of our good history, we can’t allow this level of decadence to persist. We will work as a government to ensure that we remedy a lot of the problems. We’ve actually started,” he added.

While speaking, the Principal, Mogaji, said he was just barely four weeks in the school and “we inherited a lot of problems in the college.”

On the light problem, he said, “I’ve written to the ministry concerning the light issue.”

“I don’t want to make excuses concerning the cleanliness, I take responsibility as the principal of the school. We are going to put all our hands on deck to ensure it’s not like this next time he comes.”

On the light, he added, “The Parents Teachers Association have been supporting the school in providing diesel to run the generator.

“We are been charged on Band A. Our average bill is N8m to N12m a month. There’s no way the school can raise that amount to pay monthly basis. When I came and reported, we had an accumulated bill of N65m, now it has gotten to over N70m. We are trying as much as possible within our resources to make payments based on what we have every month.

“We would like the ministry to assist us in sending more teachers here. The facilities, the PTA is trying to renovate one of the hostels.”

“The funds are not adequate, we will appreciate it if the minister will use his good office to (assist us). I’m happy your coming here is God-sent and we’re very grateful sir.”

Kings College Lagos is an all-boys school founded in 1909. It’s a national institution that’s considered the top post-primary school in Nigeria as it has produced many eminent personalities.

However, like some other federal institutions, many consider the college to be existing in the shadow of its past glory.