The Commissioner for Tertiary Education, Science and Technology, Alhaji Aliyu Mohammed Lade has disclosed that a substantive provost for the College of Education Ilorin will be announced very soon.

Lade gave the indication on Thursday in his office while addressing the three staff unions of the college who paid him a courtesy call to brief him on the recent crisis in the college.

The commissioner who explained that a new provost who is visionary and purposeful with high integrity would be selected to sanitize the college, adding that the process of selection would be based purely on merit to attain academic excellence of the college.

Alhaji Lade said the results of the affiliated students to the university of Ado- Ekiti have to be computed and released because their future should not be jeopardized for any reason, adding that large scale misappropriation of funds was noticed and recorded in the report of the visitation panel to the college.

The commissioner assured the unions of the state government’s commitment to the meaningful resolution of the crisis, adding that the government was aware of the issues raised by them.

Earlier, the chairman of the College Education Academic staff Union (COEASU) Mr. S. A Sanni . said the purpose of their visit was to inform the government of the problems of the college which are its inability to pay its affiliation fees due to misappropriation of funds and poor financial management, sharp divisions among the management and council, non- release of students’ results due to debts, among others.

He thanked the commissioner for all his laudable decisions taken so far on the college, but advised that only a seasoned and core academic should be selected as the provost to provide accelerated development for the College, adding that the selection should be based on merit rather than on political affiliations.

Mr. Sanni ‘added that council members should have not less than a Masters Degree while the chairman should be a seasoned academic with years of experience preferably from a university.

On their February salary, the unions urged the government to ensure that they were not affected by the financial crisis of the college. The unions present at the meeting were the senior staff union of Colleges of Education (SSUCOED), non ­Academic Staff Union (NASU) and the Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU).