Akure, Ondo State (Nigeria): The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Adekunle Ajasin University chapter, has sounded the alarm over severe infrastructural decay and chronic underfunding at the state-owned institution.
At a press briefing in Akure, ASUU Chairman Dr Boluwaji Oshodi revealed that the Ondo State government has failed to release capital project funds for seven years, resulting in lecture halls, laboratories, and staff offices being left in disrepair.
Oshodi stated that the government’s inadequate funding of the Ondo State-owned university has led to infrastructural decay in the institution.
He noted that the state government had not released funds for capital projects to the university for the past seven years.
“The neglect of the university has dramatically affected the welfare of academic staff in AAUA. Lecture rooms, laboratories, and the library need an urgent facelift.
“Lecturers’ offices are the most hit. The Faculty of Arts, a two-storey building, for example, has been abandoned by staff accommodated on the second floor because the inner roof has collapsed and is usually flooded anytime it rains.
“The same thing is happening to the Faculty of Education.
“Since the TETFund intervention was taken away from the university by the state government during the last dispensation, the university had experienced serious decay in infrastructural facilities,” he stated.
According to him, the institution has almost become TETFund University because nearly 90 per cent of the buildings in the university were built by TETFund.
The ASUU chairman stated that the university’s primary challenge was inadequate funding from the state government.
Oshodi noted that the monthly subvention to the institution was N223 million, while salaries and overhead costs totalled N555 million.
He added that this left the institution to augment the balance of N333 million from its internally generated revenue.
He said the union had been on strike over non-payment of their two-month salaries and had made several efforts to meet the state governor without any result.
Oshodi, therefore, urged the government to urgently release Special Intervention Funds to offset outstanding salaries and allowances, as well as increase the monthly subvention to a level commensurate with the wage bill.
Efforts to speak with the State Commissioner for Education, Science, and Technology, Prof. Igbekele Ajibefun, proved abortive as he did not answer his calls when the News Agency of Nigeria Correspondent called him.
