ASUU threatens full-blown strike over LAUTECH crisis

WORRIED by the perennial crisis relating to funding of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso jointly owned by Osun and Oyo state governments, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), on Monday threatened to embark on the full-blown industrial action of the challenges, bedevilling the institution were not urgently addressed.

Addressing a press conference in Osogbo, Osun State capital, the Ibadan zonal coordinator of ASUU, Dr Ade Adejumo lamented that the university was on the brink total collapse of immediate action was not taken to tackle the funding problem by the two owner states.

According to him “we are currently on two weeks warning strike. We are calling attention to the fact that LAUTECH is on the brink of final disintegration. We are not so much concerned about 10 months salary arrears, promotion arrears, we are concerned about non-funding of the university. It is no longer inadequate funding, it is non-funding.”

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While observing that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed before that last strike was called off had not been respected by the two owner states, Adejumo alleged that Oyo State governor, Senator Isiaka Ajimobi and his counterpart in Osun, Mr Rauf Aregbesola have failed in their statutory obligations to the institution.

He further called on the governors to make their stand known to the public if they are not willing to fund LAUTECH again, stressing that “the two governors are encouraging criminalities by insisting that the university survives on Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).”

Adejumo averred that “they should come out and disclose their plans for LAUTECH. If they want to liquidate the university, they should be bold enough to tell the whole world that they are liquidating the university.”

In his remark, the secretary of ASUU, LAUTECH chapter, Dr Toyin Abegunde contended that the appalling attitude of the owner state governments to the plights of the university vividly depicted the general disposition of the nation’s ruling class to the education needs of the citizenry.