LAUTECH: A Lecturer Explodes, Dishes Out Mind-Boggling Revelations Over Asuu Strike And Resumption Of Academic Activities

A lecturer of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology ( LAUTECH ) has stated reasons why the union joined the national strike. He also spoke on resumption of academic activities, among others. 

The interview started this morning on LAUTECH eagle where we have stakeholders which comprises of the students, Management staff, JAC and ASUU Executives, government officials in both owners state, parents, among others. 

In this interview; people expressed their bothered heart and the honest report about the school situation. 

Question : Due to the management announcement of resumption activities, a lecturer said that Lectures will start on Monday but only alumni lecturers are ready to start lectures, is LAUTECH ASUU divided ? 

Response: Please stop the further spreading of these deceit and falsehood, it wont do any one any good. I wont say more than that.

Question: Sir, are you saying the lecturer who is also an exco of LAUTECH asuu is lying?

Response: I will only continue this dialogue with you if you can mention the name of the purported lecturer here so i can confront him. As far as am concerned, maybe you are being scammed by a ghost worker. The same way the conquistadors were scammed into beleiving they can go for service without SOR

Question: Can the school management usurp the authority of the senate ?

Response: In a sane and sensible environment. it’s a jailable offense. 

Question: Those that scammed conquistadors weren’t ghost workers.

Response : I’m sorry. Did you understand english at all ? Reread what i wrote. i never said they were scammed by ghost workers. i only wrote “the way they were scammed”. i didn’t mention who scammed them pls

Question: who were they ? 

Response: They know who scammed them. it was not a secret affair, all the process took place in the open

Question: some said true Alumni members who are lecturers has vowed to be going to class, what about departments who doesn’t have Alumni lecturers ? 

Response: Alumni members will be imported and seconded from other schools around to come and teach.

Question: And those who should have taught them will still collect salary?

Response: It’s a major component of the contents of the constitution of the federal republic and by extension of the United Nations to which the country is a signatory to. Unless the law is changed or the country pulls out of the UN. 

Question: Oga, are you on defense? Tell us where you belong 

Response: As far as am concerned, LAUTECH ASUU is one and we have an official position which am binded to. So there is no fence at all, sitting squatting standing or even sleeping on it does not arise at all. However, within an organization, it is not possible that all of us will sleep and put our heads in the same direction, that’s what is currently happenning. There is no fence at all. 

Question: sir, what’s your gain with this strike ? 

Response: My personal opinion is my exclusive right and it is not for public consumption. You can only ask of my official opinion and you know where i stand. it is with my union.

Question: We learnt Tuition was increased to avert strike, why crises again ? 

Response: Have you ever taken your time to calculate the totality of the tuition you guys pay? Have you ever taken your time to calculate how much it costs the management to maintain the university in a month?  I’m  not saying salary-wise. my brother, do the arithmetic first, then we can continue from there.

Question: What has been the gain of LAUTECH ASUU joining national strike ?

Response: All the physical structures we have had on ground for the past almost 8 years in LAUTECH have been through products of efforts of that national body. I will be happy if you can point out to me any structure constructed by the owners of the university in the last 7 years

Question: Now we have all realized that the government is impotent, what’s the way forward ? 

Response: The government must acknowledge this first, that they have failed in their responsibility, that they can no longer run the school. when they do this, then we will know what next to do. The government cannot continue to eat its cake and still have it at the expense of the components of the institution.

Question: They’re acknowledging it already, by not contributing their quota to the smooth running of the school.

Response: My brother, they haven’t, we meet with them on constant basis and we know wat they say. 

Question: But is there no other weapon aside strike ? 

Response: My brother, if you know of any other one, please advice us. i need to let you know that that is the only language the government we have in place understand. i need to let you know that. All we have in that sector (education) today were achieved through one strike action or the other. it’s such very unfortunate that this government will never do anything ordinarily untill they are pressurized, and its not peculiar to the educational sector. Can you imagine that our defence outfits now have also resorted to the same thing ? Do you now know that soldiers and police officers now also embark on strike action ? That should tell people a lot of things about the wickedness and stupidity of our govts over the years. 

Question: what’s ASUU LAUTECH chapter gain in the strike ? 

Response: Thanks for this question. LAUTECH has always been a beneficiary of all the products of any industrial action of the national body. There’s a unit in the university called Academic planning Unit, it’s currently headed by Prof Adegbola of civil engineering dept.

The unit cordinate the staff development aspect of the university in terms of further courses, grants, scholarships, conference attendance for staff. It is funded by the federal government activities, this unit is complimented by organs that are products of national strike. 

Also there are countless interventions from the products of several national strikes in lautech. In fact, all the buildings that have come up in LAUTECH in the last seven years have been through products of national strikes. At least if you dont know of any one you will know dat of “The Hall”, and about 2 other buildings in the former convocation ground, this is not to talk of vehicles, equipments and other facilities. 

The only thing which your owner state do is the payment of salary, and for over a year now, they have even stopped it or never been consistent. They have asked the university management to go and look for how they can pay the salary on their own. 

Question. Sir, For the past two years, the only results strike has produce is stagnation and nothing more. Or better still tell me what the strike your union embarked on for the past two years produce? 

Response: Most of the facilities that we still brag about that we have in LAUTECH today apart from the personal equipments of members of staff are things acquired through industrial actions. You can interact with your HODs on this. If it’s not ETF, it will be PTDF. If it’s not that it will be NEEDS, including your recent buildings even vehicles “titi to fi kan reagents in your laboratory. They are gotten from the products of national or local strike. I’m telling you that the only thing which the owners manage to provide is payment of salary, and am sure you know how that has been consistent in the last two years. 

Question: So where’s our tuition going to, 

and other monies that don’t have records? 

Response: That is the reason i have given you that assignment. Do the arithmetic and lets know the difference. I’m sure that you know the genesis of the hike in tuition. But if u dont, it was when the owners told the management that they dont have any money to give the university again, that the university should go and look for money by all means, that the university thought of increasing the tuition to offset some of the monthly bills. 

Have you thought of it that how does the university pay electricity and water bills?what of fuels for all the university vehicles and generators? all d daily bills, how is it paid? do we have good toilets in the university? Do you realize the noise pollution generated by the generators of each department most especially in engineering faculty ? Is that how a university should be run ? Have you ever been in a situation where you desperately had to use a toilet in the school ? Is that how things should be? 

In the last two years, the owners have instituted two high power special investigation into financial management or mismanagement in LAUTECH. KPMG forensic auditing and Wale Olanipekun visitation panel. The owner state are yet to release their own white paper on those two investigations let alone implementing it.

Have you thought about the implications of that ? If the management had been guilty, what do you think would have happened ? The two governments are feeling guilty, that’s why they have refused to publish or implement the recommendations of the two panels. 

Question: why is the health center not well equipped ? 

Response: How much is given to you health center to function very well ? All these are consequences of poor funding. Or is it a nurse or doctor whose salary has not been paid that will equipp the health center with money that’s is not available? 

Question: Then if we cant cater for it, it should be closed down. Where is the 1400 each student paid for clearance ? lets not talk about the 1k xray fee they collected from those student without doing anything for them

Response: Exactly. You are now talking like a real undergraduate (I’m sorry to use dat language, i dont know if you are an alumnus). The academic fraud and the rot in the system starts from here. What the students pay is called Tuition Fees. This fee is supposed to comprise of funds for health care, sports, library, laboratory, etc, but what the management is forced to do now is to harvest this fee into a single account for the purpose of payment of salary, purchase of fuel for vehicles and generator, purchase of newspspers , payment of allowances of governing council members and their flights etc. 

This is because the owners have told the management to look for fund ANYHOW AND ANYWHERE to run the university because they ( the owners) can NO LONGER fund the university. 

Some members of staff think we can still continue to run the university like that, so dat we can maintain some standard, which standard are we talking about here? i said it before and I’m re-emphasising it here that with the rate the management is looking for money, they will soon direct members of staff and student to be wearing uniform to sch so that they can use the tailor to generate fund for the university.

Thank God a lot of you have learnt sewing during this break, the university will just float a tailoring factory and compel everybody to purchase their uniforms there for maximum profit. 

Question: The school should just give us syllabus and certificate. We’ll Google Search the syllabus and tutor ourselves.What’s the problem ? 

Response: That is what you have when condition for quality teaching and learning is not in place. What type of research do you want to conduct in an atmosphere where your personally improvised mtn-internet is always lacking signals ? if you dont take your “i better pass my neighbour generator to office” you are not sure of doing any meaningful work in school…as im typing now..im not sure if IBDEC had restored electricity in school.what quality education do you expect from such an environment ? 

Question: what can Asuu do to actually make their strike really productive ? Why can’t Asuu make use of media, bombarding radio station, TV and newspaper for government not to relaxed ? 

Response: Our union have a strategy in dealing with successive govts. We’ve  been in this trade for quite a long time. It’s only that we dont play to the gallery. ASUU as a union is never moved by sentiment, ethnic, tribal or religious business, we have our principles and it has been guiding us well, and it has been achieving results. All these problems will soon be over. Our officers are daily working round the clock to see to it that this current uncalled for situation is brought to a logical and reasonable resolution. i can assure you of that. 

we have never failed before, and im sure this time around, the system will come out the only beneficiary.  

Once again, I need to emphasise that ASUU as a body is not moved by sentiments and emotion and that is the reason why it has been so difficult for successive govts to break us. Thank you so much for ur meaningful input. 

Question: it’s ok. You will always get what you want or almost. It’s we the students that suffers for everything. 

Response: There is just one message in all this; Our land is not alright. The system is sick, and in a situation where the center does not hold, things have to fall apart. Pa Chinua Achebe foresaw this several decades ago.

Question: So by going on an indefinite strike will allow us run the school smoothly ? 

Response: Awon agbalagba so wipe amunkun, eru e wo. He just smiled and replied silently that you are only looking at the top as far as educational sector is concerned in this country. We have a foundational problem. It’s only unfortunate that we are looking at it from the surface level. 

I dont know where you were the year professor Wole Soyinka suggested that we should close down all our universities for two years to really re-appraise the system, people called for his head then, calling him so many hate-filled unprintable names. People are now wiser for it. probably if we had done it then, may be only maybe things might have changed a bit. But those who wanted to go for service that year saw him as their eternal and sworn enemy. They eventually graduated and went for service. But can we count the number of 2-years that the system had been down since that year? 

Question: Upon all the strike, does it look like the governors are moved ? Has anything change yet ? 

Response: My brother, it’s only an evolving process, it’s only unfortunate that we are victims of circumstance. we are only unfortunate that we are the current players on the field at this unfortunate time. This period (of evolution) happens in the life of every nation.

I attended OSUTECH/LAUTECH between 19990-1997 for a 5-year course, that should tell you that something fundamental is wrong with us as a nation. we will get there eventually, not in this generation though. It will take some time, it will require sacrifices, but it will not be like this forever. 

Just look at the June -12 crisis, though we have not gotten what we really wanted but who knew justice will come when it came after how many years ? it will take time but eventually, elede maa de Oyo

Conclusion.

I’m very positive that Monday’s meeting with FG govt will b fruitful. let’s be patient. There’s light at the end of the tunnel. it is not the best of times for us too as individuals. but the system must be saved from extinction..