You may not believe this but the genesis of the present hullabaloo and stalemate at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) in Ogbomoso can be traced to Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State.
How? In December, 2013, the government of Osun under his watch did not pay its N292 million subvention to the institution due to paucity of funds. This totally upset the financial arrangements and set the ball rolling for the chaos that now reigns supreme at LAUTECH.
While making this revelation during an interaction session with South West Group of Online Publishers (SWEGOP) in Ibadan on Tuesday, the Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Ladoke Akintola University (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, Dr Biodun Olaniran said Aregbesola unconsciously ignited the time bomb about to explode at the institution.
Olaniran continued “Oyo State had paid its own N292m earlier in the year. The arrangement is that they send money in twice a year each state taking half a year. When it got to the turn of Osun to pay in December 2013, Aregbesola could not pay. The institution has not recovered since that time.
The ASUU Boss also hinted that his association also suspects that there may be a grand plan to destroy the institution owing to what it described as uncomfortable double-speak by owner state governments and conspiracy of silence by the institution’s governing council.
Chairman of the Union, Dr Biodun Olaniran, who was hosted by the South West Group of Online Publishers (SWEGOP) in Ibadan on Tuesday, regretted that while the Vice Chancellor as well as the Governing Council have not issued a single statement on the crisis rocking the institution, the owner states have been taking conflicting positions.
“I cannot say this is where the authorities of the institution stand because the governing council has not issued a single statement since the crisis started. Unless it is making moves underground but their silence calls for suspicion.
“The state governments of Osun and Oyo, on the other hand have not been speaking with one voice. Osun would say something totally different from Oyo and the commissioners would say something else. This gives room for suspicion that there may be a grand plan to destroy the institution”, Olaniran said.
He also said that another important personality that needs to speak and wade into the crisis is a national leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu.
Olaniran said: “We think at this point that the silence being maintained by the Chancellor of the University, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, is not helping. We call on him to wade in and save this institution. The problem with the school is chronic underfunding.”
Dr Adeniran also responded on the move by concerned authorities to blame LAUTECH’s ASUU.
A lot of blame has been heaped on ASUU. The union has been accused of sabotaging efforts to conduct a forensic audit of the institution as recommended by the visitation panel. A legal luminary, Chief Niyi Akintola (SAN), who is also a member of the school’s governing council, blamed ASUU for taking the crisis to this stage.
In an interview with ceoafrica last week, Akintola said things began to take the wrong turn for the institution when the Academic Staff Union (ASUU) of the University began to demand earned allowances which the state governments could not afford.
But Olaniran wondered why ASUU should be blamed for the things that go wrong because owners and authorities of the institution failed in their responsibilities.
He said: “Why blame ASUU? They say ASUU is stopping them from conducting forensic audit. How? You want to audit finance, are the finance books in ASUU’s possession? You want to audit staff, is ASUU in charge of staff documents and appointment letters?”
Olaniran disclosed that while it is understood that there is financial crisis in the country, it would not be accepted that there was no money at all. According to him, before the state governments went for the bailout funds from the Federal Governemnt, LAUTECH staff were among those captured as being owed and were listed as part of those whose salaries, together with other civil servants, would be paid with the bailout funds.
He asked, “so, at what point was LAUTECH removed from the list? So, we are not being unreasonable. We know they collected bailout which was meant for payment of salaries. What happened to it? These are the questions we should be asking? They should conduct their forensic audit but not shelve their responsibilities and answer their own questions too.
“It is on record that Oyo and Osun have collect bailout funds at least thrice and not a single worker of LAUTECH was paid. Now, they are saying we should be using internally generated revenue (IGR) to pay salaries, how far can that take us?
“I can say here that as at the last time we checked the records, IGR at LAUTECH was N2.3billion while wage bill was N4.38b. So, what are we talking about?
“What we are talking about is that we should make the owner states to be responsible and alive to their responsibilities. We are open to dialogue, we are not against ‘forensic auditing’ as far as the laws are complied with.
“We are using this opportunity to implore other well-meaning Nigerians and lovers of quality education to intervene and tell LAUTECH owners to do the needful to protect the future of our students and prevent LAUTECH from being killed.
“We want the recommendations of the Wole Olanipekun Visitation Panel to be implemented. But we are against commercialization of education.”
Packaged by Alice Egbedele
