The Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology Owerri - Professor Francis Chukwuemeka Eze seems to be in the news for all the wrong reasons.

It's barely a year since he assumed office but has an affinity for trouble. First the VC was in a mix for indiscriminate increase of tuition fees which met heavy resistance and protest from students of the institution. Much later, Professor Francis Chukwuemeka Eze had non teaching staff protesting over a cut in salaries and poor welfare.

The Staff was not spared as they also grieved over the poor conditions meted out by the current VC. Now the major host community of the school, Eziobodo seems to have felt the heat of Professor Francis Chukwuemeka Eze yet again as a newly constructed road by NDDC which links to the school and co-incidentally is a major entrance and exit to and from the community was barricaded with a gate which is controlled jointly by the school authorities and the community's vigilante group.

The bone of contention now is the fact that Professor Francis Chukwuemeka Eze stopped commercial motorcycles from operating in the school without a memo or proper consultation with the indigenes who use this as a source of livelihood; introducing the school's shuttle which is far below demand and restricts access for passerby's who are either moving out or coming into the community. The VC broke the carmel's back with this final straw; he stopped indigenes of the host community from dredging from their river 'ota miri' and supplying sand to their customers only for him to install his own dredgers not in the name of the institution but for personal gains and demands the people of the community to buy fine sand from him.

You will recall that the VC has been using the Police Force especially men from Nekede Division to illegally arrest people and students from Eziobodo with certain informants i.e Ja-rule from Ihiagwa community leading the team just to frustrate efforts of protesters. Laptops have been seized for no just cause and insecurity on the increase for fear of the police and not thieves. This is a distress call as Eziobodo community is in urgent need of the authorities to cushion the effect of a power hungry VC. Efforts to reach the VC has proved abortive as men of the Police force came as usual to raid the community on thursday but met a strong resistance by the youths of Umuayo Village majorly in Eziobodo.

Source: http://castgist.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=25088

cc: Lalasticlala, Mynd44