The Federal Government’s order for Unity Colleges to resume on Monday has run into resistance on the ground, with students yet to return to schools checked in Anambra, Ebonyi and Enugu.
The Federal Ministry of Education had insisted that September 14 remained the approved resumption date for all Federal Unity Colleges nationwide, dismissing a circulating notice claiming that reopening had been shifted to October.
But checks by the News Agency of Nigeria in the three South-East states found that students had not resumed at the federal colleges visited.
That gap between the national directive and what is happening at school level has created uncertainty for students, parents and staff.
Federal government insists schools should reopen
On September 12, the Education Ministry said all Federal Unity Colleges were expected to resume on Monday, September 14.
The ministry said a social-media circular claiming that resumption had been postponed by three weeks was fake and urged parents and students to rely only on official communication.
Education Minister Maruf Tunji Alausa also said the government remained committed to a safe and orderly reopening of the colleges.
Schools checked in three states remained shut
Despite that directive, checks found non-resumption at Federal Unity Colleges visited in Anambra, Ebonyi and Enugu.
That finding does not establish that every Federal Unity College nationwide failed to reopen.
It does, however, show that the government’s national resumption instruction was not being implemented uniformly across the schools checked in the three states.
Claims that all 112 Unity Colleges were shut cannot therefore be safely made from the evidence currently available.
Labour dispute adds pressure
The disruption comes amid a wider labour dispute over the King’s College concession, which unions have linked to resistance around resumption.
The Federal Government says King’s College has not been sold or privatised and that legal ownership remains with the government.
Under the concession arrangement, the King’s College Old Boys’ Association is expected to finance, rehabilitate, modernise, operate and maintain the school, while the Federal Government retains regulatory and oversight powers.
The King’s College concession dispute and the verified non-resumption in the three South-East states are related through the wider labour dispute, but they are not the same fact and should not be collapsed into a nationwide shutdown claim.
Students and parents carry the consequence
For families, the immediate problem is uncertainty.
Students expected to resume on Monday now face uneven reopening conditions depending on their school and location.
Parents also face practical questions over travel, accommodation, feeding and whether students should report to campuses that may not yet be operating normally.
For staff, the dispute raises a separate question over whether normal duties can resume while labour resistance continues.
What the government must clarify
The first accountability question is simple: how many Federal Unity Colleges actually reopened on September 14?
The Education Ministry has stated the national policy position, but a current school-by-school status has not yet been published.
The government also needs to clarify whether the labour dispute is affecting only selected colleges or has spread more widely across the federal school system.
For parents and students, the next useful update is not another general statement.
It is a verified list showing which Unity Colleges are open, which remain closed or disrupted, and what instructions apply to students in each affected school.
Until that evidence is available, the strongest established position is that the Federal Government ordered all Unity Colleges to resume, but schools checked in Anambra, Ebonyi and Enugu had not resumed as directed.
