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Students of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology ( LAUTECH) Ogbomoso have threatened to organise a protest in Abuja over the industrial crisis that has crippled the school.
Calling on the governors of the owner states, Oyo and Osun, Abiola Ajimobi and Rauf Aregbesola respectively, to fulfill their financial obligations and resolve the ownership issues of the institution, the Students Union president, Abiodun Oluwaseun, at a press conference at the weekend, said the incessant strike actions of teaching and non teaching staff of the institution were already having physiological effects on the students.
He said: “If government continues to show lack of commitment and disrespect the lives of over 3,500, students of the institution, we cannot but embark on a 10,000 student match to the federal capital territory Abuja to show the entire world the callousness we suffered in the hands of the governors of Oyo and Osun whose priority ought to be building a brighter and formidable future for this nation but has decided to kill it instead.”
Oluwaseun also expressed disappontment at the silence of the institution’s chancellor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, over the crisis.
The students called for the immdiate release of grants for infrastructural development and payments of salary arrears and other allowances as well as regular release of monthly subvention for payment of salary of workers
They also called for the full implementation of outcome of Wole Olanipeku visitation committee probe as well as the recommendation of KPMG audit report.
On the ownership tussle, the student noted that the problem of joint ownership of the institution remains the major problem.
“In the last twenty years, funding and ownership have always been the major sources of conflict between the two owner states, especially as both states have established their own own universities, to the neglect of 27-year-old LAUTECH.