It was a jubilation galore among Non-Academic staff at the University of Ibadan, as they celebrated the exit of Prof. Idowu Olayinka, the 12th vice chancellor of the Nigeria's premier university , whose five-year tenure in office ended on Monday.
The workers who are members of the institution 's non-academic staff unions under the aegis of Senior Staff Association of Universities (SSANU) and Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) were seen in a symbolic farewell protest against Olayinka's tenure. “sweeping his feet out of office”.
The workers who arrived at NISER Garden venue of the farewell rally as early as 9am, were seen holding brooms in their hands and singing solidarity and farewell songs, to indicate their ‘cleansing’ of the university after Olayinka’s exit,
They later marched to the office of the vice chancellor around 12:30 noon, expressing their dissatisfaction to his style of leadership which according to them ,had brought untold hardship in the last years of his tenure as Vice-Chancellor.
The symbolic farewell saw workers, sweeping the floor from the VC’s office to the main gate of the university to register their displeasure and celebrate his exit.
SSANU Chairman Mr. Wale Akinremi who spoke at the symbolic farewell rally, explained that the unions embarked on the exercise to thank God for seeing them through the tenure of Prof. Olayinka “under whom the workers suffered untold hardship.”
“Why we are here today is not to dissipate energy or make noise, but to appreciate Almighty God for seeing us through the tenure of Prof. Olayinka. We suffered untold hardship under the watch of Prof. Olayinka as the VC. We pray that never again will any vice chancellor put the workers and students through such a tortuous journey",he stated
According to him “At the time Prof. Olayinka came in 2015, the Federal Government did not owe us promotion arrears in 2014, how come that it was in 2015 that he came in that they owed us promotion arrears? The fact is that his tenure was a failure. For five years, both academic and non-academic members of staff could not get promotion arrears. We must have lost about two and a half years of academic calendar to the wasteful regime of Prof. Olayinka".
“Olayinka tormented teachers of staff school for about five years. Teachers of staff school were collecting pension deductions from the Federal Government and they were signing monthly return forms under Prof. Olayinka. To date, he has not paid them."he lamented.
The union said that the immediate past vice-chancellor was never bothered about the welfare of workers at the staff school .
His words“In other universities, teachers were promoted, but he did not do that. What manner of training did you benefit under Prof. Olayinka? What was the level of morale of workers or are you talking about security? Are you going to talk about work and maintenance or research grants? To date, the cleaners are complaining. At some point, we had to contribute money to give a sort of succour to the cleaners"
The university's governing council had since approved Prof.Babatunde Ekanola (current Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Academics) as the acting Vice-Chancellor.
No comments:
Post a Comment