Oyo poly governing council, academic staff spar over sack threat

All is not well with the Oke-Ogun Polytechnic in Saki, Oyo State as members of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnic (ASUP) and the Governing Council continue to be at loggerheads.

The council last Thursday after an emergency meeting held at the Oyo State Ministry of Education suspended the activities of the academic staff union who embarked on a strike over non-payment of 11-month salaries. The council also ordered them to resume immediately.

A communique signed by Moshood Tijani, the governing council chairman, further instructed the management of the institution to put up a register in the registrar’s conference room for all academic staff to sign.

He threatened that any academic staff who refused to sign the register of duty should consider his or her job loss.

However, ASUP members on Monday refused to sign the register compelling them to end their strike.

CAMPUS REPORTER reliably gathered that the lecturers gathered at the Polytechnic car park at the administrative building to express their displeasure over the decision of the council.

When contacted, the chairman of ASUP, Muyiwa Olawumi, said the council has turned the institution to a “barracks” where staff can no longer demand what is right.

He said the suspension of their union activities is “unconstitutional, illegal, null and void. It is outdated, humiliating, degrading, archaic, excommunicating, barbaric, embarrassing, dictatorial, provocative and undemocratic”.

The union, however, said that lecturers will not resume except the negotiation window is exhausted.

Oyo State institutions have recently been faced with one crisis or the other.

CAMPUS REPORTER reported the crises of the non-academic staff in The Polytechnic, Ibadan and the disruption of examination at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso over the failure of the visitor to meet up with their responsibility to the institutions.