Assu at it again

The President of Academic Staff Union of
Universities, ASUU, Biodun Ogunyemi,
has said that the union will resist any
attempt to increase tuition fees in the
country’s public universities.

He also said ASUU could go on strike if
the government failed to meet its
demand on adequate funding of the
institutions and payment of salaries.
Mr. Biodun, who gave the hint in an
exclusive chat with PREMIUM TIMES,
said the union would not accept any
increase in fees by state or federal
governments.
“We will not tolerate any attempt to
increase tuition fee, we are against
telling people to pay more, even the
current fees, we are still fighting them,
we as a body have always stood against
fee increment and we will continue to
stand against it,” he said.
The union leader spoke against the
backdrop of reports of a possible increase
in tuition fees in universities by the
federal government.
According to Mr. Abiodun, ASUU has
been engaging the federal government
since November 2016 on issues rocking
the university system.
“The truth is there are lots of issues
rocking the system. We have made our
position known to the federal
government; we have also written to
state governments who have refused to
give subvention to their universities,” he
said.
“Some of them cannot sustain one
university and they go on to establish
two or three, compounding the issues.
“We have given the government till June ending to
attend to our needs, if the government does not call us
by June ending we will convey a meeting to take our
position.
“However, we are trying to engage the government but
if they don’t invite us to a meeting before June ending,
we will still take our position on whether we are going
on strike or not.
“But that will not be like early July but middle or late
July, that is if they don’t heed to our demands which
includes payment of salaries, funding, research and lots
more”.
Asked if ASUU would initiate a meeting with the
federal government, he said “We will not initiate any
meeting if they don’t call us, we can’t initiate
meeting.”
He added that the feedback received from the petitions
written to the government would determine whether
there would be strike or not.
The ASUU President also spoke on the crisis at the
Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, LAUTECH.
“We have issues like this, a case where lecturers are
not paid for months will no longer be tolerated. The
truth is that this and many more make up our demands,
we have written to all state governors too and we want
to engage stakeholders in this issue, that is why
whatever happens in July will be very comprehensive,”
he said.
Meanwhile, the Oyo State Commissioner of Education,
Adeniyi Olowofela, has said the owner states are
committed to speedy reopening of LAUTECH.
He said the university would have reopened, if not for
the controversy surrounding the issue of audit of its
finances.
Mr. Olowofela told PREMIUM TIMES on Saturday that
the government had given a three-week ultimatum to
the external auditors, but were hindered due to lack of
documents.
He also said that the stance of ASUU had remained a
major problem towards resolving the crisis.
“The truth is when the auditors were to come in, we
gave them three weeks to complete the audit, the three
weeks should have elapsed but the auditors did not
have enough documents to work with,” he said.
According to him, the Oyo state government used
federal allocations to pay civil servants’ salaries and
used internally generated revenues to fund other
institutions like LAUTECH.
He said the government had just paid N144million as
subvention to the institution.
“As we speak now, the allocation that lately came from
the federal government, everything was used to pay
workers’ salary in the civil service,” he disclosed.
“The Oyo state government also just paid N144 million
to LAUTECH as subvention, we are committed to the
reopening, we did that. ”
On the issue of ASUU’s position and the continued
controversy, Mr. Olowofela said, “What we asked of
ASUU is just cooperation for three weeks, there is a
difference between three weeks and eight months, we
cannot obey the position of ASUU.
“Really, the government only needs three weeks of the
time for audit, we need to know what we really need in
the university; when the audit is done, we know the
needs and move on from there.”
While saying that the university administration could
be better, he denied that the owner states were
suspecting the university management led by Adeniyi
Gbadegesin of corruption.
“We never said they are corrupt, as far as we are
concerned we only said that the university can do
better, no one is stating that they are corrupt,” he said.
On when the university will reopen, Mr. Olowofela
said, “We need everyone to appeal to ASUU so we can
carry out what we need to, ASUU should not be the
proponent of saying that the audit should not take
place, they should understand that these are hard
periods, these things ought to have been completed and
all issues solved.”
In his remarks, the Chairman of ASUU, LAUTECH
Chapter, Biodun Olaniran, said, “We are not against
any audit, what we needed before now and still need is
the pattern of funding because that is what the
university needs.
“There are several other recommendations in the white
paper of the visitation panel but we don’t know why it
is only audit that has taken prominence.”
He said the owner states should show seriousness by
charting ways of funding the university more.
“We wonder why they are bringing us to this issue, the
documents they need are not even with us,” Mr.
Biodun noted.
Efforts to speak with the Vice Chancellor of the
University, Adeniyi Gbadegesin, were unsuccessful as
he did not pick his calls or reply messages sent to his
phone as at the time of filing this report.
LAUTECH has been enmeshed in controversies
surrounding poor funding and disagreements between
workers and owners of the university on ways to
resolve the problems.
The Alumni Association of the institution recently
launched a #FundLAUTECH initiative intending to raise
about N1billion within 90 days to support the
university