STAKEHOLDERS at the Ambrose Alli University, (AAU) Ekpoma have set agenda for the Visitor to the University and Governor of Edo State, Mr. Godwin Obaseki on surest way to return the crisis-ridden University to normalcy.
Concerned stakeholders who spoke to our correspondent yesterday advised Obaseki to jettison the state government’s perceived negative sentiment and fixated perception about the University and allow for the universally-tested university governance, due process, academic convention, law and global practices to prevail in the management and governance of the University.
Chief Tom Okonuogbo, who expressed concern while speaking as a stakeholder, advised that “to restore normalcy and chart new forward for the University, proper, normal, ideal and conventional mode of university governance must be restored without further delay”.
The call is coming shortly after the expiration of the one year tenure of the University’s Special Intervention Team (SIT) on June 4 this year.
The state government dissolved the University’s Governing Council sometime in May last year and replace same with SIT.
Stakeholders which include all the University’s staff Unions, had before now described SIT as unprecedented aberration in the history of the University because of the attendant consequence of erosion of university autonomy.
“The worst aberration of the century is the setting up of SIT whose activities in the University since inauguration are a negation of the supposed functions of a Governing Council”, they said.
The stakeholders maintained that to restore peace, smooth academic calendar and industrial harmony within the University, “it is important to dissolve the University’s SIT, because apart from being a misnomer, it is an albatross, a drain pipe on the lean resources of the University, and a clog in the wheel of the University’s progress.”
They regretted that the University’s SIT has not added value to the University nor increase the global competitiveness of the University, which is the dream of the Visitor.
“Whereas they currently fill the lacuna of the absence of a Governing Council in the University, which ought to operate at the level of policy formulation for adequate funding, intellectual/academic and infrastructural development of the University as well as ensure good policies in the direction of discipline of staff and students; unfortunately, the observed activities of the SIT in the University since inauguration leaves much to be desired. They made themselves the administrative organ of the University by way of direct administration of the University,” they said.
They called for the constitution of a Governing Council for the University whose members must be competent, experienced and knowledgeable in University governance to arrest the decline and crisis of the University governance.
They also called for urgent need for the state government to urgently grant the University bailout to enable the University Administration effect payment of all outstanding salaries, check-off dues and other sundry deductions.
They expressed concern over the refusal of the state government to release the White Paper on the report of the Visitation Panel to the University after over one year of its submission to the state government.
It would be recalled that prior to the setting up of the Special Visitation Panel, there was a plethora of alleged massive corruption, mal-administration, abuse of due-process and assault on regulations and law of the University.
They also expressed similar worry why the reports of the due diligence inquiry into the finances of the University and the previous staff verification exercises have continued to be ignored by the state government.
They further expressed concern why a University in the 21st century would be managed and governed on Ad-hoc basis as evident in the aberration of SIT and the University’s continuous management by acting Principal Officers.
Stakeholders at the University said they are greatly perturbed by all this development and called on the Visitor to take necessary actions to restore the University to genuine normalcy.