ASUU flays neglect of LAUTECH, warns against its commercialization

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Calabar zone, has condemned the deplorable state of affairs at Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomosho.

Zonal Coordinator of the union, Dr. Aniekan Brown, told newsmen in Calabar yesterday that ASUU would not allow co-owners of the school, Oyo and Osun states, to abdicate its funding.

The union warned against allowing the school to drift towards commercialisation.

He said: “This is all because the university has become entirely dependent on Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) for survival, the impact of which is on the students and their parents.

“They have been compelled to pay outrageously high and unaffordable fees, in the face of the present precarious economic situation.

This is unacceptable and should be dutifully rejected.”

ASUU chairmen in the zone who attended the meeting were those of the University of Calabar, Dr. Tony Eyang, University of Uyo, Dr. Daniel Udo, and Akwa Ibom State University, Dr. Imeh Okop.

Other were Abia State University, Dr. Ochi Ejimofor, Federal University, Ndufu Alike Ikwo, Dr. Ogugua Egwu, and Ebonyi State University, Dr. Ikechukwu Igwenyi.

Brown said: “The brazen abdication of the responsibility of funding of LAUTECH by the co-owners, Oyo and Osun states, is a shocking new low.

“In some time past, even within our clime, the situation of LAUTECH would have been considered an aberration and a shameful moral condition, if not a taboo of some sorts.

“But to dramatise the serious moral crisis that we face, the governments of Oyo and Osun states carry on as if nothing has happened, even in the face of a jointly owned university becoming comatose due to lack of funding.”