Reprieve could be on the way for the long-suffering students of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso following the agreement by Oyo and Osun states to sheathe their swords on the ownership tussle bedevilling the institution. Before last week’s rapprochement, the institution had been closed down for four months, stalling academic activities. It is surprising that two states that share the same culture and language and which were one until 1991, could engage themselves in such a destructive battle over a matter that could be amicably resolved.
As has been the case since 2010, the current crisis is also about the ownership structure of LAUTECH. The institution has two campuses – one in each state – but the main site is in Ogbomoso, Oyo State, where it all started in 1990 when 437 candidates were admitted. LAUTECH currently boasts a student population of 20,000, whose future is being threatened.
The ownership template changed with the creation of Osun out of Oyo in August 1991. Although Osogbo, the Osun capital, hosts the School of Health Sciences, acrimony reared its head during the tenure of Christopher Alao-Akala and Olagunsoye Oyinlola as governors in Oyo and Osun states respectively. Incidentally, the two governors belonged to the same Peoples Democratic Party, which made the bickering a bit unusual.
In 2010, Oyo unilaterally attempted to become the sole owner of the institution through a legal instrument. It made a gazette to that effect. Section 27 of that gazette states partly that “the university is deemed to be solely owned by Oyo State as from December 31, 2010.” As expected, this elicited outrage in Osun, with the state heading for court. The Supreme Court, in a 2012 ruling, said that “unless both owners sit down and agree, no party can single-handedly decide to sever the relationship.”
But it did not stop the bickering, as the just-ended row showed. Things degenerated last month when hoodlums invaded the Ogbomoso campus, and threatened that members of staff from Osun should leave or risk death. Also, the Oyo State House of Assembly moved a motion calling for the state to take over the school, arguing that Osun had abdicated its financial responsibilities to LAUTECH for the past 15 months. Yet, Oyo might not be able to run it alone for now, despite the alleged lethargic posture of the Osun State Government; it still has to carry its sister state along.
Therefore, after the recent agreement of the two states affirming their joint ownership, the most pressing concern should be how to revive the fortunes of the institution. Tellingly, the National Universities Commission had declared it as the best state university consecutively in 2003 and 2004, but how will the school run properly when there is bickering between the owners, and one of them has a hefty financial arrears? To make the latest affirmation work, it must be worth far more than the paper it is written on. Mere pronouncements will not take LAUTECH forward, only real commitment to the letter and spirit of the agreement will do.
Going forward, Osun, which has already established its own university, has a big role to play. Can it cater financially for its own university and discharge its financial obligation concurrently to LAUTECH? If not, the rational step for Governor Rauf Aregbesola to take is to sit down again with his Oyo counterpart, Abiola Ajimobi (who both belong to the All Progressives Congress), and iron out the issues at stake in the interest of the students and staff of the institution. We believe that an institution like LAUTECH ought to be insulated from politics and the intra-ethnic rivalry that currently plague it.
In retrospect, this was also the case between Imo and Abia, two states in the South-East region, in the 1990s. The late Sam Mbakwe, as governor, had established the Imo State University in Uturu, in 1981. But when Abia was created out of Imo in August 1991, Imo ceded the school to Abia, and, since then, has been called the Abia State University. It was a simple and peaceful transition when the two states shared their common assets. Imo went on to establish a new one. Likewise, Ondo State peacefully ceded the University of Ado-Ekiti to Ekiti State, when the latter was carved out of it in 1996, and has since established three of its own.
However, it will be hasty to think that all the problems at LAUTECH will disappear overnight if Osun agrees to concede to Oyo. A hint of the trouble ahead emerged in September when Ajimobi, citing the recession, cut subvention to tertiary educational institutions in Oyo State by 75 per cent. LAUTECH is among the seven institutions affected by the directive.
Universities are meant to be centres of excellence. They are conceived to serve humanity through their academic programmes, further the frontiers of productive knowledge and aid development through research. Universities like Harvard, Yale, Oxford and Cambridge are making giant strides and impacting the society because they are models. That should be the vision for LAUTECH, too. Therefore, we urge Oyo and Osun states to eschew the intra-ethnic rivalry and let reason prevail.
