The MD chooses to take a walk rather than retreat to the private room in
her office as she always does. She walks towards a piece of land that
Stardom had acquired two years ago and that was five minutes away from the
school’s back gate. She discovers that the teachers and some other staff
are using the land as a park instead of the park allotted to them within
the school’s premises. She is shocked by the number of big cars and buses
that she sees in the car park.
She immediately summons the principal and accountant to figure out if the
teachers and staff are stealing from the school. When the MD asks how the
teachers and staff can afford the cars, the principal advises that they
retreat to the office to discuss it. The principal reassures her that the
school purse is fine and that the staff had gotten the money through the
school’s cooperative.
The MD inquires further: “How much is in the account of the Stardom
Cooperative Society that it could buy every fool the car of his or her
choice?” Her choice of words shock both men. The following day, she called
for a meeting of the board of directors where she was able to ascertain that
the Cooperative society had N95 million, while over N50 million had been
loaned out. The MD shares her concern about how the staff can use that money
to establish their school and steal their brand. She uses the simile: “It’s
like hanging a snake in the roof and going to bed.” The board eventually
reached a decision, that no staff member could borrow more than N250,000,
that all loan requests had to be approved by the MD and that the management
must be informed about the cooperative’s elections.
