Lagos State government has exonerated itself from the agitations of the protesting members of staff of the Lagos State University, LASU, which greeted the school in early hours of today.
It was reported that the four staff unions at Lagos State University, Ojo, locked out their Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Olanrewaju Fagboun, and students as the university resumes today after the coronavirus break. They were the Academic Staff Union of Universities, the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, Non-Academic Staff Union, and the National Association of Academic Technologists.
At 7 am, members of the unions stood at the gate and prevented members of staff from gaining entry into the University.
According to the a press release signed by the Special Adviser to the state governor on Education, Tokunbo Wahab, and made available to Freelanews, it was revealed that the state government had been responsible enough in ensuring that the school’s management collected its monthly due.
“We wish to state categorically that Lagos State University, like other subvented MDAs, collects the sum of N450,000,000.00 (Four hundred and fifty million naira) every month from the Lagos State Government as Subvention. The Government expects the institutions to also be responsible in the application of the funds and the staffing of the institutions. We must also have at the back of our mind that they have IGR which they generate and not accountable to government on how same is expended,” the statement read.
Recall that on a TV programme recently, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s aide stated categorically that the state was almost the only state not owing teachers’ salary in the whole country, Barr. Wahab wondered why LASU’s administrators were not doing the needful despite all the school is receiving from the government.
“Aside the Subvention, the government is also responsible for the infrastructural developments (which include the recently approved 8,000 plus bed hostel in this same LASU) of the institutions and other ancillary things including payment for accreditation exercise for which the last one cost the government close to N500m.
“We expect that the management of these institutions pay up their staff salaries to avoid situations that looks more like deliberate sabotaging of the efforts of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu led administration as we prepare for schools resumption this week,” he disclosed.
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