The Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) on Thursday, invaded Providence High School, Enugu with over 50 mobile policemen to take possession of the school with 344 borders.
AMCON officials had stormed the private boarding school for girls at about 1:30pm and later came back at about 5:30pm with policemen armed to the teeth, condoned of all the entrances to the College and ordered all the teaching and non-teaching staff to vacate the premises with their belongs.
They also insisted that the students must also vacate their hostels with immediate effect, claiming that the property was used to borrow money from banks by the late owner, Late Ferdinand Anaghara who gave the property to the proprietor Mrs. Elizabeth Onwuagha.
Our correspondent who met the officials of AMCON at the college had approached the team leader but was ordered out by policemen led by one Inspector Sheidrack and also threatened not report the incident after a male staff of the school was beaten to pop for allegedly asking why should they threaten to lockup the students if they didn’t vacate the property.
However, the Proprietor, Mrs Onwuagha, who spoke to our correspondent on the development, described the invasion of the College with armed security agents by federal government officials as an act of terrorism.
She narrated how late Ferdinand Anaghara gave her the property which had only two buildings to start the school in 1997 for free.
She said “This school started in 1997 and the property was giving to us by Chief Ferdinand Anaghara. He gave this to us as a favour. He gave me all the photocopy documents of the property and said he would give us original documents at a later date.
“When we went for the original documents he said, my sister wait I will give it to you when the time is ripe. Unfortunately, in 2007 he died. We didn’t know he was owing until in 2016, 19 years after he had given us the property and nine years after his death AMCON came.
“Their leader said then that because it was school they would leave the school open but we should find money and pay what Ferdinand owes. I told them that I do not have money and school didn’t have money; that schools are social services. We don’t trade and buy, and make profit. There’s no profit here and they left.
“After we wrote a letter to AMCON stating our own side, and expecting reply from AMCON. The letter was submitted on August 1st 2016 but there was no reply till today, January 21, 2021. All of a sudden, what we have was AMCON invaded the school with policemen, when the students were still in class and ordered everyone to vacate that they come take possession of the property.”
Mrs Onwuagha added, “I asked how can you take over the property? Will you take over 344 children who are here? Where do you take them to and they are boarders?”
“Only two buildings were handed over to us but we have built six additional two storey buildings each with one long bungalow. All the structures were put with the knowledge of late Anaghara. Nine years after his death problem is coming.
“The school has invested over two billion naira in the property. We are talking about buildings, furnitures; in all the dormitories we have beds; in all the classrooms we have chairs and lockers. We have science experiments in the laboratories.”
Lamenting what she described as “invasion” of the school, said, “what they did today is like terrorism, bearing in mind of what happened at Katsina State recently where over 500 students were taking away.
“Do we know whether those policemen were genuine policemen or kidnappers. Why will they come at this time when people are talking of Covid-19.
“If you move these children here you are moving the history of many that have gone out since 2000 when we started presenting students for WASCE and NECO for SSCE. Their documents are here. Their history are here. What do you do to those documents and history that are here? Whoever is thinking about this thing should remember that education is a social service. What we are doing here is what the federal government is doing in all the federal government colleges and state government are doing in secondary schools that belongs to them.”
