LAUTECH ownership crisis resolved

The Federal Government has resolved the over 20 years old crisis rocking the Oyo and Osun States governments over the ownership of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, LAUTECH.

At a briefing in Abuja, the Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission, NUC, Professor Abubakar Rasheed, said the governors of the two states agreed to handover the university structure and management in Ogbomosho to Oyo and the LAUTECH Teaching Hospital in Osogbo to Osun State.

The LAUTECH was established in 1990, by the old Oyo State Government with a campus in Ogbomosho and the teaching hospital in Osogbo.

Just one year after the establishment,  Osun State was created, precisely in 1991 and that marked the beginning of the ownership crisis which has rocked the university for years.

Several committees and retreats have been set up, but the crisis persisted.

The latest was a four-day retreat held last week in Lagos after a tripartite committee submitted its report.

The tripartite committee had undertaken the re-evaluation and updating of the asset and liability, forensic audit of LAUTECH in Ogbomosho and the University Teaching hospital in Osogbo as well as the delineation of assets and liabilities for sharing by the two owner states of Oyo and Osun.

But questions remain what now happens to the two structures since a teaching hospital cannot exist in isolation and medical students cannot undertake clinical elsewhere from a teaching hospital.

While it remains uncertain when ASUU will suspend the ongoing strike, it is certain for the Oyo and Osun states, the management, staff, and students of LAUTECH that the protracted ownership crisis has finally been resolved.