The Rector, Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron, Akwa Ibom State, Commodore Duja Emmanuel Effedua (retd) says he has made more enemies than friends due to his insistence on developing the institution.
Effedua made the disclosure while making his presentation before the House of Representatives Committee on Maritime Safety, Education and Administration on oversight function at the Academy recently.
According to him, his insistence on plugging all financial leakages and acts of corruption by some staff and contractors earned him stiff opposition.
Effedua, who is doing his second term, said he received over 6,500 petitions in the last three years of his administration.
He added that there was no week he was not being petitioned before the anti-graft agencies.
“This is my second term which runs out next year, we have done all that we needed to do and we done need to stay more than necessary. There were challenges when I was appointed, it is not easy for people to accept changes.
“I met a lot of abandoned projects, more than 39 of them, some were abandoned for years, I was then wondering what to do. I had to get an audit firm to audit the Academy, let us know where we are coming from.
“We had to draw the line to reorganise the school, look at the classrooms we met. How can someone learn in this environment? I say no, we have to build modern classrooms, we can do it, it’s just attitude, but in doing these we hurt people, people don’t like what you are doing and that is why I’m the most petitioned COE in Nigeria.
“I have received over 6,500 petitions as at three years ago, and there is no week that I’m not being invited by the anti-graft agencies by somebody because some people think that the longer you stay, they no longer get what they were getting before,” Effedua said.
He said that the state of infrastructural decay at the Academy was so bad that the International Maritime Organization (IMO) had threatened to delist Nigeria as a place where Maritime students should be trained.
Reacting to the presentation during the interactive session which held at the conference hall of the Nautical Building of the Maritime Academy, the chairman of the committee Khadijah Bukar Abba Ibrahim said all contractors who abandoned projects from the inception of the institution would be investigated and made to account for every Kobo collected to serve as a deterrent to others.
