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The national alumni body of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, has described as selfish, calls for a split of the assets and liabilities of the 26-year-old institution.
A socio-cultural group, Ogbomoso Parapo had staged a protest asking authorities to split the school’s ownership between the owners – Oyo and Osun.
LAUTECH was established over 26 years ago before Osun was carved out of the old Oyo State and an agreement for joint ownership was signed by the two states. The university’s main structure is in Ogbomoso, in the present Oyo state but its teaching hospital is located in Osogbo, the Osun State capital.
The school have over the years, had to battle with salary crisis with workers regularly embarking on strikes to demand their pay. Currently, the institution’s lecturers are on strike.
The joint ownership has turned sour over the years and there are, as before, calls for the partnership to be severed.
But the alumni association of the institution has kicked against such calls. A statement signed by the national president, Babajide Bewaji and financial secretary, Kamal Oloso, said the partnership between the two states “has remained productive over the years as the past and present enviable status of the institution can’t be ascribed to any of the two but a collaboration of an inseparable unity of purpose.”
The statement read further: “We, on behalf of the National Executive Council, National Executive Committee and the entire members of the LAUTECH Alumni Association convey our utmost displeasure and condemn outrightly the discolouration and unpatriotic attitude of a sociocultural organization under the aegis of “Ogbomoso Parapo” who for their selfish purpose staged a protest to call for the divisibility of the 26years old institution as jointly owned by both Oyo and Osun states, and equally clamour for the sack and or transfer of Osun State indigenes working in LAUTECH Ogbomoso back to their state of origin. To say the least, as the major stakeholder of the LAUTECH project, we are disappointed.
“It will be recalled that a resolved crisis of this nature was rebuffed few years ago, as such we shall remain committed to the statutes and edict establishing LAUTECH, formerly OSUTECH which makes it a co-responsibility of the two owner states. We remain eternally grateful to our host community under the authority of His Royal Majesty Oba (Dr.) Jimoh Oyewumi, Ajagungbade III, JP, CON, the SOUN OF OGBOMOSOLAND, who we have been cohabiting together in a peaceful atmosphere over the past two decades.
“We hereby advise the organisation to desist from any act capable of fanning the ember of disunity, discrimination and segregation amongst the management, members of staff, and students of our beautifully endowed Alma Mater. We call on them to rather partner with the Alumni association to steer the LAUTECH wheel of progress to more enviable status nationally and internationally.
“In the same vein, we appeal for the understanding and cooperation of all the striking unions in the University to call off the ongoing strike as a mutual and peaceful pact in resolving this impasse that has engulfed the school in the last four months have been sought by the two state governors in showing financial commitment on a monthly basis henceforth”
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