LAUTECH management, students resume as lecturers continue strike

Students of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology have resumed for studies after a directive by the university management.

The school was closed in June last year as lecturers went on strike to demand payment of their salaries.

In a circular earlier distributed by management of LAUTECH and signed by Jacob Agboola, the school asked all academic and non-academic staff to resume on Friday.

PREMIUM TIMES had earlier reported that lecturers had vowed not to resume Friday even when students resume.
By Friday morning, most lecturers did not resume.

Speaking with PREMIUM TIMES, chairman of ASUU, LAUTECH Chapter, Biodun Olaniran, said the Oyo and Osun state governments were not serious with ensuring full resumption of the school.

“The truth is that there have been no efforts to ensure that we resume; students who have resumed are only here to play and really we will not resume until our demands are met,” he said. “We have said until our demands are met, we will not resume and that is what we are doing today.”

“If the students stay in school for one or two weeks, I don’t know what they will be doing, until we get a directive from our national body after our demands have been met, we remain on strike.”

He said that lecturers received only a month salary out of the two months promised.

“We have received just one month with a promise to pay the remaining one month today or tomorrow,” Mr. Olaniran said. “Our demand is not about salary, even if we receive the alert , we will not call off the strike.”

One of the demands of ASUU is a letter of commitment from the owner states stating how the university would be funded and how salaries would be paid.

The Oyo government, speaking on behalf of its Osun counterpart, said it cannot write such letter.

Bolaji Afeez, senior assistant on youths and students affairs to the Oyo governor, said.

“We have met all the demands of ASUU and what they are doing now looks like it has a political undertone, if they are not comfortable with the way things are going, they should resign, is it a must to work there? There are many persons looking for same job,” he said.

“They are asking for a letter of commitment and we cannot write it, it is not their business to start asking how we want to fund the varsity, it is like asking the Chief Executive Officer of a company how he wants to run his company. Who does that?”
The public relations officer of LAUTECH, Lekan Fadeyi, told PREMIUM TIMES said “LAUTECH has ordered resumption, the date cannot change and management is trying to put things in place.”