RismadarVoice Reporters
September 17, 2026
Police operatives on Wednesday sealed the premises of King’s College, Onikan, Lagos, following days of protests by parents and growing opposition to the Federal Government’s decision to concede the management of the school to its Old Boys Association.
The police presence came a day after parents reportedly clashed with security personnel and members of the King’s College Old Boys Association (KCOBA) during a protest over the concession arrangement.
By Wednesday morning, police vehicles and personnel had barricaded roads leading to the school’s main entrance, while motorists approaching from the Tafawa Balewa Square axis towards CMS were diverted to alternative routes.
Despite the heavy security presence, senior members of KCOBA arrived at the school around 11am for a meeting to deliberate on the controversy surrounding the concession.
Those present included the association’s National President, Ibrahim Imam, and former Nigerian Bar Association President, Olumide Akpata.
Speaking to journalists after the meeting, the KCOBA leadership said the association would operate the college in accordance with the principles on which Nigeria’s Federal Unity Colleges were established.
Imam dismissed concerns that the concession amounted to the sale of the institution, stressing that the Federal Government remained the owner of King’s College.
“We are not going to turn the college into an elitist one,” he said, adding that the agreement with the government was based on the continued application of the principles governing Unity Colleges.
He said previous interventions by old students to rehabilitate and improve facilities at the college had repeatedly been undermined by poor maintenance and vandalism.
According to him, the concession agreement is available for public scrutiny and provides for representation of students from all states in keeping with the federal character principle.
Imam also assured that the association would not increase school fees under the arrangement.
KCOBA Secretary, Etigwe Uwa, SAN, said the objective was to restore the institution to a standard that would enable students from different backgrounds to benefit from the opportunities the school provided.
He said King’s College had provided him with a platform to succeed and that he was committed to ensuring that future students received similar opportunities.
The Chairman of the KCOBA Week Planning Committee, Gbolahan Oluyomi, also recounted attempts to introduce digital learning and teaching systems at the school, which he said faced setbacks.
Akpata, meanwhile, rejected claims that parents and members of staff had been excluded from discussions concerning the concession.
He said both groups had participated in meetings convened by the Ministry of Education as well as engagements with the old boys’ association.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government has ruled out reversing its concedeo concession of the management of King’s College, saying the arrangement is intended to tackle the institution’s longstanding infrastructure and management problems.
The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, said this while addressing journalists amid continuing protests by workers of the Federal Ministry of Education and their unions over the concession and the closure of some Federal Unity Colleges.
Alausa accused some ministry directors of allegedly mobilising workers against the government’s policy, saying the government had intelligence identifying officials involved in the mobilisation.
The minister said the government had engaged the unions and reached a six-point agreement aimed at resolving the dispute and restoring normal operations within the ministry.
He warned that while the government would allow lawful protests, it would not tolerate actions that violated the law.
On the Federal Unity Colleges, Alausa maintained that the government had no plan to sell any of the institutions.
“The Federal Government is not selling any Unity College,” he said, stressing that ownership of the schools would remain with the government.
The minister also said the scale of infrastructure challenges facing the colleges was enormous, noting that even a hypothetical N2 trillion allocation would not be sufficient to address all the problems.
Reflecting on his inspection of King’s College, Lagos, Alausa said some parts of the institution were well maintained, but described its infrastructure as old and in need of substantial investment.
He further dismissed the argument that concessioning King’s College amounted to the sale of government property, reiterating that ownership would remain with the Federal Government.
The Minister of State for Education, Suwaiba Said Ahmad, said the government remained willing to engage the unions in dialogue but maintained that normal activities must resume at the ministry.
Ahmad attributed part of the resistance to the concession to concerns about changing existing arrangements and called for stakeholders to engage with the government’s plans.
