ON Friday, September 16, the newly constituted Governing Governing Council of the Ladoke Akintola University (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, Oyo State, reopened the institution after a protracted dispute that lasted for over a year. According to a statement signed by the Registrar and Secretary to Council, Jacob Agboola, the students of the university are expected to return to school on Monday, September 25, while full academic activities, the details of which would be announced by the Senate of the institution, would commence immediately after the Independence anniversary holiday. This followed the resolve of the Oyo State governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi and his Osun State counterpart, Mr Rauf Aregbesola, to support the university with necessary funds to enable it to return to its normal work schedule and reinvigorate its latent capacities for accelerated and sustainable growth and development.
Prior to the announcement of a resumption date, the Governing Council led by its chairman and Pro-Chancellor of the institution, Professor Dapo Afolabi, had held interactive sessions with the leadership of the various workers’ unions. In line with the law that established the institution and the demands of the owner state governments, the Council appointed an auditing firm, KPMG, to examine the institution’s finances. The auditor’s report has since been submitted to the Council. Naturally, the development has brought a huge dose of relief to the distraught students of the university and their parents who had all suffered untold hardship since June 2016 when the university was shut. Although some of the burning issues are yet to be resolved, the Governing Council took the bold initiative of announcing resumption dates for the students apparently in the belief that academic and other activities can go on simultaneously with active engagements with the affected unions and the owner state governments in order to resolve the admittedly still topical issues. This is, we believe, the right way to go. LAUTECH, like any other university, is a work in progress and issues will always arise. Thus, keeping the school under lock and key while negotiations proceed would have been both ill-informed and completely uncalled for.
To say that the reopening of LAUTECH is cheering news is in fact an understatement. While the institution remained shut, the governments of the owner states and the school authorities had traded blames on the sad state of affairs. Claims and counter claims over sustainable funding and the payment of arrears and entitlements were made with none of the parties being willing to shift ground in order to arrive at a consensus. In particular, the students of the institution, the supposed leaders of tomorrow, have been subjected to unbearable agony through no fault of theirs. They have idled away at home while their colleagues in other institutions have since graduated and moved on with their lives. They have watched their hopes and dreams being all but aborted by the failures of the owner states and the institution’s managers. Already, only time and an overwhelmingly positive turn of events can assuage the pains entrenched in their psyche. On no account must they be made to suffer such a cruel fate again.
The times definitely call for sustained dialogue and compromise. They call for sobriety and rationality. Whether for good or bad, the situation in LAUTECH has taught hard lessons that the stakeholders and even the nation at large will not forget in a hurry. The feuding parties therefore need to embrace the spirit of give and take. They must shelve hard-line postures and embrace moderation in their demands. So much has been lost already and none of the parties to the dispute in LAUTECH can lay claim to the immutability of its position. In this connection, the university’s chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) must review its position to continue its strike while the authorities of the institution must take steps to assure its members that their demands regarding earned academic allowances, pension and gratuity, promotion arrears and conditions of service are going to be met, even if not in one fell swoop.
We commend the Governing Council of LAUTECH for consulting with the academic and non-academic staff unions, as well as students and their parents and reopening the institution. We urge the Council to do its best to ensure that the university does not suffer the kind of fate that has befallen it since the workers downed tools in June 2016 over unpaid allowances. It must study the report of the Wole Olanipekun Visitation Panel and implement the recommendations therein with dispatch. It must lead by example and chart a new, unimpeachable course for the university. The alumni of the university also deserve commendation for their untiring efforts to ensure the school’s reopening. Taxing themselves financially and emotionally, they made huge contributions to their alma mater’s salvation, firm in their conviction that no university survives without the positive inputs of its alumni. They have acquitted themselves well and history will give them a favourable chapter. On their part, the owner state governments must keep their word. They must renew their commitment to the sustenance of LAUTECH and assuage the pains of its students and staff.
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