BY Tony Edike

ENUGU-Enugu State Government, Monday, ordered the sack of the Institute of Management and Technology, IMT management team, led by the Rector, Professor Edwin Onyeneje, as part of efforts to get the National Board for Technical Education, NBTE, to re-open the institution which was recently shut down for over-enrolment of students.

State Commissioner for Education, Dr Simon Ortuanya, who briefed newsmen on the crisis in IMT, also announced the immediate dissolution of the IMT Governing Board, led by Dr Leonard Ugwu.

Explaining that the action was aimed at restoring confidence of the management of NBTE, public, as well as students on the institution, Ortuanya said members of the sacked management team, including Onyeneje, the Deputy Rector, Dr John Orji, and Registrar, Mr Bartholomew Ezea, had been asked to proceed on disengagement leave with immediate effect.

Accordingly, a former Deputy Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, FUTO, Prof. Mike Iloeje, was appointed as Acting Rector for the IMT, while Mr. Sylvanus Asogwa was appointed the new Acting Registrar.

The Commissioner disclosed that a five-man Judicial Panel of Inquiry led by Justice Afam Nwobodo and Mr Nduka Ikeyi, Prof Malachy Okwueze, Dr Ikenna Chukwu and Mrs. Maria Aniobi as members, was set up to unveil the remote and immediate causes of the problems that led to the temporary closure of the institution by the NBTE.

Ortuanya, who expressed dismay over the withdrawal of the accreditation of all the programmes of the institution, which he said, had remained one of the foremost polytechnics in the country, noted that the state government was determined to address the anomalies with a view to ensuring that the school regained its lost glory.