Following the dismissal of Mr. Anthony Umeozor from the services of Federal Polytechnic Oko by the Governing Council and the attendant social media reactions by his family and friends, of which many are twisted, fallacious and an appeal to emotion, it became imperative to disabuse the minds of the public by presenting the matter holistically.
First and foremost, it needs to be stated that this case predates the current Governing Council led by distinguished Sen. Engr. Dr. Barnabas Gemade. In same vein it predates the incumbent Rector, Dr. Chioma Irene Awuzie. Whereas the 12th Governing Council was inaugurated in July 2024, the Rector assumed office in February 2025. This is therefore not a case of vendetta or victimization as some who are not well informed allege.
Mr. Anthony Umeozor was appointed as the substantive Registrar of Federal Polytechnic Oko by the 11th Governing Council in June 2022. However, the Federal Ministry of Education observed anomalies and violations of laid down procedures in the process of his appointment and subsequently nullified his appointment. An acting Registrar was later appointed with the approval of Federal Ministry of Education.
However, Mr. Umeozor not satisfied with this, filed a case at the National Industrial Court Awka Division in suit No NICN/AWK/CS/55/23 to validate his appointment as substantive Registrar and nullify every action taken by the Acting Registrar. The court upheld his prayers. However, the Polytechnic filed an appeal at the court of appeal and followed that with application to stay orders contained in the judgement of the court.
The Polytechnic further processed and entered the records of appeal.
While this was the situation, Mr. Umeozor filed fresh originating summon in suit NICN/AWK/CS/40/24 asking the court to determine that he remained the substantive Registrar of the institution as he had canvassed in the earlier matter which is on appeal. The institution pointed this out as abuse of court processes citing the existence of a valid appeal on the issues. The court nonetheless granted his prayers prompting the Polytechnic to appeal the ruling and also filed a stay of execution of orders contained in that ruling.
Subsequently, a petition from a registered civil society organization was served on the polytechnic alleging that Mr. Umeozor was not supposed to remain in public service having crossed the statutory retirement age of 65 years. Following this development, the Management referred the matter to the Senior Staff Disciplinary Committee for investigation after Mr. Umeozor had been asked to react to the matter in a query issued to him of which his answer did not sufficiently address the issues raised.
In the process of this assignment, the committee accorded Mr. Umeozor fair hearing wherein he made his voluntary submissions. During its investigation, the committee unraveled incontrovertible evidences of forgery of date of birth by Mr. Umeozor. The committee observed that Mr. Umeozor had different dates of birth: 1960, 1961 and 1965 respectively on his record of service. A finding which amounts to serious misconduct under Rule 100402 (a) of the public service rule.
The committee after a thorough work concluded its assignment and submitted its report to the Management which adopted the recommendations made and forwarded same to the Governing Council. It is necessary to state that there is no court judgement that barred the committee from sitting to carry out its lawful business while it lasted. It also needs to be equally stated that in the issues Umeozor raised before the court in his suit, age was not part of it. Hence there is no court judgement that exonerated him of the allegation of falsification of age.
The Governing Council deliberated on the report and consequently dismissed Mr. Anthony Umeozor from the services of Federal polytechnic Oko in line with Rule 100407 of the public service rules which prescribes dismissal as the ultimate penalty for serious misconduct.
