The Old Students’ Association of Government Commercial College (GCC), Zaria, the oldest commercial college in Kaduna State, has called on the state government to recover the encroached land of the school.
The association cried that the college is facing some existential challenges that may bring its existence to an end due to massive encroachment of its land.
The President of the association, Alhaji Aminu Turaki, made the appeal in an Interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Zaria on Wednesday.
Lamenting over the situation, Turaki said the association was aware of the problems and they are doing everything possible to liaise with relevant stakeholders to address them.
However, he commended Gov. Nasir el-Rufai for approving the rehabilitation of the school.
According to him, the work is going at an extremely slow pace, as this is about the third year since the commencement of the rehabilitation work and not much was achieved.
“If the school is fenced, it will give confidence to parents to allow their wards to stay in the school as boarding students.
“We are also trying to let the state government see reason to allow the school to run boarding and day sessions. In our view, this will bring more students to the school, especially from the neighbouring communities.
“This used to be the system before the decision to turn the school to boarding only.
“If government insists on retaining GCC as a boarding school, then the necessary facilities that will attract students have to be in place,’’ he said.
Turaki said the college was a school that has been graduating students since the 1970s, some of them are presently in our fold; it would be a great setback if the government allows it to go into extinction.
He described GCC as peers of schools like Barewa, Alhudahuda and many prominent schools in the state, and reechoed the imperatives of reclaiming its encroached land.
NAN findings revealed that the major threat the college is facing is the trespassing on a large chunk of its land for the establishment of a day school.
Attempts to speak with the school’s principal and other officials failed, as all of them cited their status of civil servants who are not allowed to talk to the media. (NAN)