LAUTECH: Group urges school management, ASUU to resolve crisis

Sakin Babalola, Ibadan

A socio-political group, the Oyo Patriotic Front (OPF) has called on the management of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) and labour unions in the institutions, especially members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), to resolve their differences and allow academic activities to resume in the school.

OPF made the appeal in a statement signed by its Chairman, Chief Jare Adepoju on Tuesday in Ibadan.

The group noted that the lingering crisis between the union and the school management is affecting the students’ lives and their academic programmes are suffering with no hope for finalists to graduate timely for National Youth Service Corps.

OPF explained that education is not only important but for it to be described as being at its best, it must be timely and should not be truncated by people or the system.

The group said: “LAUTECH students have been at home for over two months. At the initial stage, we thought the problem was because of the government inability to pay its subventions to the institution regularly.

“However, we observed that other institutions in the two owner states, Oyo and Osun are not having the same problems with LAUTECH. Also, we investigated the cause of the closure and discovered that the problem is internal and this made us to believe that the problem with the institution is peculiar.

“We see nothing wrong if the management of the institution decides to use the internally generated revenue to pay salaries. It shows that the management is thinking outside the box to ensure that the school is financially independent which should be seen as a plus rather than cause of disagreement.

“We urge LAUTECH ASUU to soft-pedal on their stance and consequently call on the national body of ASUU to prevail on their members.”

The group added: “Though, the governments of Oyo and Osun had raised a visitation Panel of enquiry to resolve the issues, we are calling on the management and the various unions to sheath their swords and allow academic activities to resume in earnest. They should consider the interest of the students as well as their parents to end the disputes.

“We appeal to the governments to equally task the management on the immediate resumption while the panel set up continues with their assignment. We believe that the students should not be allowed to suffer for what is not their fault.”