The LAUTECH management imbroglio

WHEN the last national elections took place and Abiola Ajimobi reportedly won the election, I wrote, published in a national weekly and got sent to the Governor’s Office through at least three avenues that promised to get it to his attention, how happy some of us were that he won the election. These were because of some of the things he tried to do in the early part of his first term including the cleaning up of Ibadan, the call for suggestions for good governance then and the clearing of street trading and building of markets and their better organisations, etc. We pointed out eight pre-election and very strong political odds that were against him for that election. So, the fact that he won it was a great combination of good luck and some last time political combination of favourable manipulations, not necessarily those caused by him alone. He therefore needed to be very careful in this second tenure, that he actually does it well.

Again, at the outset of this present political dispensation in Osun State, the governor there decided to run the state without any commissioners, caused the unnecessary religious wars in the government-run schools in the place and, like many of the other governors, failed to pay the salaries of government workers for a very long time (even after getting the requested funds to do so from the federal government), I was really troubled in my spirit about the types of governance that we are getting in this country. I took part in discussing it as well as in pleading with people who I know should, and especially those who claim to, be able to reach that political management, that they should explain to them some essential management and non-partisan political wisdom in these regards. I am not sure if any of these got to him or them,either. So, not exercising the counsels in those advises may not be his fault.

However, both in Oyo State and Osun, the problem of non-payment of staff salaries has continued. This has gone on in the same ways, with the rather not true people-involvement (or proper show of the grass roots concerns) in both states. However, the worst area of this lack of genuine concern for the welfare of the people being governed is in the issues concerned with their jointly owned Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH). In this regard, the failure to pay the workers in that university for over a year now and similarly, with the academic life there in shambles for that long, is a very sore issue; with careers of very many innocent and very responsible people placed in jeopardy! The same, and equally as bad, is the utter ruin of the lives of the many young Nigerians who were supposed to be students in that university for this long! What a pity!

All our enquiries about the reason for this logjam only attracted very incomprehensive ego and rather very unwise partisan political intrigues akin to what can only come from the brain of Lucifer himself! How is it that two neighbouring states that had indeed been in the same one state until recently, had been part of the same state ever since the creation of regions and states in 1963 and with people who are obviously from the same tribe and religious mixes (as the roots of Nigerians political and other corruptions), are not able to resolve a simple issue as deciding how to part ways, peacefully and without the apparent wilful ruining of their very own peoples’ lives, when they are no longer able to get along with their common heritage such as an academic institution only?

People may wonder why the LAUTECH imbroglio should be a concern to me, a federal government worker with no immediate visible economic harm from this rubbish situation and also a “non-indigene” of Oyo or Osun State by the Nigerian prevailing civilisation. Well, I (and indeed every adult Nigerian) should be concerned with this matter! We should be, because they are precious lives that are being ruined by this fact. Many families have been broken to pieces by the situation. We have been involved in the sorrows and the seeking of employment elsewhere by individuals and couples devastated by the unnecessary crisis. The economy of these two states are significantly going down the drains because of the imbroglio; and we live here and do suffer the effects thereof – of security threats from the armed robbers being bred by the fact, by the constant harassment by beggars from the effects of it, all over the place, etc!

So one has to ask, what is the difficulty with resolving the matter peacefully? As it is so very clear, the two states are no longer able to run the university jointly. So, why do they not publicly accept and say so? Why do they not set up a joint committee to determine the investments that they had made in establishing the university (including the ones understandably being claimed by individual partisan politicians), ascertain what portions of these university investments are now located and will remain in either of the states, and thereafter decide who compensates who for these investments now; and so, take up the part of the former university that falls to them and run it well? Why would either states, particularly Oyo, go ahead to establish another university altogether without resolving this long going issue? No state that I know has been able to run a single university properly in this country; so why would any state want to be involved in two or three of them, at all? If ANY state must run a university, it must be only one multi-campus university, serving specific areas of tertiary education, according to the geographical advantages of the various regions of the state.

I believe that all those who can, must go and plead with the governors of Oyo and Osun States, their political collaborators as well as those whose counsels they are known to take seriously, that the situation of the LAUTECH that is ruining so very many lives in both states and indeed all of Nigeria cannot be allowed to go on any longer. Whether they actually believe in God or not, they must know that they will have to answer for these ruins sometime in the future; whether in this world or elsewhere. A word in time, they say, should be enough for the wise! God bless Oyo and Osun States; and us all too!

• Asuzu is Professor of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of Ibadan

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