LAUTECH crisis: Protesters tackle Osun govt over unpaid salaries

 

 When five days ago, some indigenes of Oyo State, under the auspices of Ogbomoso Parapo Worldwide Home Branch, protested and asked the Osun State Government to hands off in the running of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, the incident underscored the oddities the ivory tower has passed through in recent years.

The protest in which the protesters also asked Osun State indigenes in the university to leave the school also reminded stakeholders of the challenges both the workers and students are currently undergoing. Aside from the fact that the gates of the school are shut, its workers have not received their salaries for many months now.
Some of the placards the protesters carried read, ‘Osun State, leave LAUTECH for Oyo State’, ‘Do not destroy LAUTECH, it is Oyo’s glory’, ‘Osun, quit now,’ ‘Federal Government, save LAUTECH from Osun State Government – No salaries for 14 months.’

A leader of the OPWH, Saka Bello, said that LAUTECH had reached a state where its survival was being threatened and that all efforts should be made to redeem the situation.
“Osun State Government owes the school 16 months of subvention and that is why all unions in the school are on strike. Examination cannot hold while those who were to take part in the National Youth Service Corps programme could not go because the school is on strike.
“Osun should pull out of the joint ownership of the school since it now has its own university. Workers of Osun origin in LAUTECH should return to the university owned by Osun State. We are meeting the Oyo State Government representatives on Wednesday (tomorrow) to discuss this issue,” he said.

According to him, there are incontrovertible evidence that the university belongs to the two states.
Akere said, “The two states have been alternating the payment of salaries of workers for a very long time. If Oyo State paid six months salaries at the university, which is in Ogbomoso, Osun would have done a similar thing at the LAUTECH Teaching Hospital for the same period. That is how they alternated it.
“This has been so because the LAUTECH Teaching Hospital, which is supposed to be serviced by the two states, has been serviced by Osun alone for over two years now. The two governors will sit down and iron out the issue. It is not a matter of Osun abandoning the university.”
When asked if it would not be better for the two states to share the assets and liabilities of the institution established in 1991, Akere said that should be left for the governors of the two states to decide.

The Deputy Governor of Osun State, Mrs. Titi Laoye-Tomori, did not pick her calls when one of our correspondents contacted her.
She also did not reply to the text message and the whatsApp chat sent to her telephone to seek the state government position on the issue.
 Meanwhile, the LAUTECH Senior Staff Association of Universities Chairman, Alhaji Muraina Alesinloye, had earlier accused the two governors of neglecting the university.
Alesinloye, who spoke with one of our correspondents, said Osun State would lose out if Aregbesola should pull out of the ownership because the teaching hospital would not stand on its own without being affiliated to the university.
 The SSANU Chairman said, “Aregbesola has withdrawn from LAUTECH and I think he should be bold enough to come out and say that. He should stop this hide-and-seek.
“But Osun State will lose if Aregbesola withdraws. The teaching hospital in Osogbo cannot stand alone. It is attached to the university and it cannot operate as a teaching hospital, if the university is not there.

“The university management has been struggling to raise money to pay us but it can no longer cope with this – since April. What do you think would have happened if the management had not tried to raise some fund for us?”
But as the stakeholders hold divergent views on the way forward, the Registrar of the university, Jacob Agboola, said efforts were on to ensure that the school reopened soon.
He said, “I cannot give you any specific date but I can assure you that the school management is speaking with relevant authorities to ensure we reopen soon. This means that the strike will be over soon.”