The controversy trailing the concession of King’s College, Lagos, to the King’s College Old Boys’ Association (KCOBA) by the Federal Government is far from over, as parents and other stakeholders are mobilising for a mass protest against the arrangement.
The Chairman of the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), Mr Peter Oluwaseye, said the planned protest had become necessary given the widespread opposition to the concession among stakeholders of the college.
According to him, parents, senior civil servants and the school community are united in rejecting the move, insisting that old students should not treat the college as personal property since they were once students of the institution like the current pupils.
He maintained that King’s College remains public property and that no private entity could assemble the calibre of teachers currently in the college. He urged old students willing to support their alma mater to do so voluntarily rather than seek to take it over, warning that such an attempt would not succeed.
The President of KCOBA, Alhaji Kashim Ibrahim-Imam, had last month announced the concession of the 116-year-old college to the association, alongside the launch of a N100 billion endowment fund to reposition the institution.
Among the first donors to the fund are Nigeria’s First Lady, Mrs Oluremi Tinubu, who gave N10 million, and Ibrahim-Imam, who personally donated N1 billion. The former Board of Trustees Chairman, Chief Philip Asiodu, and the association’s new Board Chairman, Alhaji Femi Okunnu, each contributed N100 million.
The endowment is expected to fund infrastructure renewal, teacher development, digital technology, scholarships, innovation, research and student welfare at the college.
Ibrahim-Imam described the concession as a defining moment in the history of the institution and a possible blueprint for revamping public education across Nigeria. He explained that the arrangement would allow KCOBA to partner with government to upgrade infrastructure, strengthen governance and improve learning outcomes without altering the school’s ownership status.
He dismissed insinuations that government had sold the college to the association, describing the deal instead as the creation of a new governance framework through which KCOBA would work with government to restore, strengthen, modernise and sustain the institution.
Speaking further on the significance of the development, Ibrahim-Imam said the Federal Government’s approval of the concession ranked among the most consequential developments since the college was founded in 1909, noting that the institution had for over 116 years produced distinguished Nigerians across public service, business, academia, the military, the judiciary and other sectors.
He, however, acknowledged growing concern over the deterioration of facilities and systems that once made King’s College a benchmark for secondary education in the country, adding that the concession was the product of years of advocacy and engagement by generations of old students committed to reversing that decline.
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