Adamawa Poly Graduates Protest Over Accreditation Delays, Demand Government Intervention

Adamawa Poly Graduates Protest Over Accreditation Delays, Demand Government Intervention

It was a tense atmosphere at the Adamawa State Polytechnic, Yola (SPY), on Monday as aggrieved graduates and current students staged a peaceful protest at the Rector’s office, sending a clear message to the school management and the state government: their future is being delayed.

The protesters, comprising graduates from the 2023, 2024, and 2025 sets, expressed frustration over the failure of the institution to upload their accreditation details on the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) portal. The situation has left many qualified graduates stranded, unable to participate in the mandatory national service year, which is a key requirement for employment in Nigeria .

Students currently in HND I, as well as those who just completed their programmes this year, also joined the protest, fearing they may suffer the same fate upon graduation.

Findings reveal that the protest was driven largely by students from the Science Laboratory Technology (SLT) and Biochemistry departments. According to multiple sources, the HND SLT programme has been running since 2021 without full accreditation from the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) —despite the institution having graduated two sets of students and preparing to admit a third cohort in 2025.

This accreditation gap has rendered many graduates ineligible for NYSC mobilisation, as the NBTE strictly requires that only graduates from fully accredited programmes are cleared for the national service scheme .

One of the protesting graduates, who pleaded anonymity, lamented:

“We have written letters, asked questions several times, and sought answers from the school management. The only response we keep getting is, ‘We will do it soon.’ But nothing has changed until today. Our hard work is being wasted.”

The protesters, who had initially gathered within the school premises, later marched to the Government House, hoping to draw the attention of Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri. However, they were turned away and not allowed to enter.

The rejection has deepened the frustration among the students, who now call on the Governor to intervene personally to ensure the affected programmes receive full accreditation.

“These students are not asking for too much,” a protest leader said. “They only want their years of study and hard work not to be wasted.”

The protest comes amid growing national concern over the delayed mobilisation of polytechnic graduates for NYSC, a crisis that has left thousands of HND holders in professional limbo across Nigeria . Industry experts attribute part of the problem to institutional bottlenecks, including failure by schools to secure timely accreditation and poor documentation of student records.

In a dramatic turn of events, the Rector of Adamawa State Polytechnic, Professor Mohammed Toungos, who initially was not on campus when the protest began, later returned and received the students.

Addressing the gathering, Professor Toungos commended the protesters for their maturity and peaceful conduct throughout the demonstration. He assured them that the management had heard their grievances and would expedite action toward resolving the lingering issues of certificate issuance and accreditation.

According to sources close to the institution, the Rector promised to engage with the NBTE and other relevant authorities to fast-track the accreditation process for the affected programmes.

The Adamawa State Polytechnic, Yola, is a state-government owned institution offering National Diploma and Higher National Diploma programmes across various fields . While the school is listed among NBTE-accredited state polytechnics, specific programmes—particularly in the sciences—have faced repeated accreditation challenges .

For the SLT department, the lack of full accreditation has been a sore point. Graduates from the 2021, 2022, and 2023 sets have been unable to proceed to NYSC, even after completing the mandatory one-year Industrial Training (IT), which itself is a key requirement for HND graduation .

This is not the first time students of the institution have taken to the streets. In a separate incident last week, students protested over prolonged blackout and water scarcity on campus, issues which the Rector attributed to high energy costs and unpaid electricity bills .

With the Rector’s promise to act, students are cautiously hopeful. But many remain skeptical, noting that similar promises have been made in the past without tangible results.

“We want to see action, not more promises,” another graduate said. “We are tired of waiting. Our lives are on hold.”

As the 2025 HND admission cycle begins, the pressure is now on the Adamawa State Government and the NBTE to ensure that programmes with expired or pending accreditation are urgently visited, so that students are not left stranded year after year.