LAUTECH: Lecturers shut down Osogbo, blast Aregbesola, Ajimobi

Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, from different zones of the country on Friday shut down Osogbo, the Osun State capital, as they protested the decidedly poor commitment Osun and Oyo governments to the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso.

The lecturers were seen displaying placards with various inscriptions such as: “Oyo/Osun, Don’t Play Politics with the Lives of Our Students, “Aregbesola/Ajimobi, Do Not Kill the Best State University in Nigeria, “Ajimobi and Aregbesola Haba! Must LAUTECH Die?”

LAUTECH is jointly owned by Oyo State and Osun State, but it has been troubled for years as the two states underfund it.

The lecturers protested from Freedom Park to the state secretariat at Abere, Osogbo.

The Branch Secretary of ASUU at LAUTECH, Toyin Abegunrin, decried the neglect of the institution as well as ‘commercialisation’ of the education by the governments.

He condemned the alleged commercialization of the university

The coordinator of Akure zone of ASUU, Alex Odiyi, said the protest was to compel the two visitors -Rauf Aregbseola and Abiola Ajimobi – to do the needful.

“The protest is simultaneously going on in Osun and Oyo to compel the two states to do the needful and be alive to their responsibilities,” he said.

Mr Odiyi alleged that the visitors failed to take action on the Memorandum of Agreement signed with the union before the last strike was called off.

“The people who are at the helms of affairs acquired former education free of charge. Many of them emerged Governors and became very wasteful at the expense of the people,” he said.