Image caption: Students protesting at the Senate Building of the institution in June
LAUTECH agric faculty: Lecturer in trouble for posting video showing only one student in class (SEE VIDEO)
Khalid ABRAHAM
A lecturer of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, Oyo state has landed in trouble following his “audacity” to release a video of a class he took Friday at the Iseyin campus of the university, in which only one student participated.
The lecturer Dr Wole Adeleke in the video footage said he was at the Iseyin campus – College of Agricultural Sciences and Renewable Natural Resources – to take the class Friday morning but found only one student in class, which he took nonetheless.
Ogbomoso Insight investigations revealed that the lecturer was handed N5,000 (five thousand naira) by his Head of Department to travel down to Iseyin to launch their department only to find an empty class – only one student out of 1, 533 or thereabouts.
“Of course he took the video to show as evidence of his attendance in class upon returning to Ogbomoso,” another lecturer in the faculty who preferred anonymity told Ogbomoso Insight.
But the “harmless video” found its way to the social media and is now trending and so is seen by the authorities of the college as a negation of the impression being given that the faculty had taken off in full gear. This obviously infuriated the authorities and therefore the issuance, with alacrity, of the query to Dr Adeleke.
Advertsiement
Recall the issue of the relocation of the 33-year old faculty to Iseyin with subsequent directive to the 200 level students to begin academic activities there has generated a lot of controversies as the students especially opposed it, citing various reasons bordering on economic hardships, disruption of academic activities, exposure to security risks as cases of kidnapping for ransom are rampant in the zone and so on. Likewise, lecturers have shown their displeasure also on various grounds some similar to those mentioned by the students as well the huge collateral damage they said would come with it such as disruptions of partnership programmes and abandonment of vital facilities and experimental/research farms. This is as inhabitants of the host community and ex-students protested against the move. All the protests centred on appeals to the governor Engr Seyi Makinde to reconsider particularly when it was uncovered that some “vested interests” had hijacked the plan for their own selfish goal.
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200 level students of the faculty were directed to resume the second semester at Iseyin on Monday October 23 but that same day representatives of the affected students stormed Ibadan to meet with the governor (but were able to only meet with his representatives), the members of the Oyo state House of Assembly, and the security agents to confer with them.
While the government officials promised to pass their grievances to the governor and await response, the Department of State Services reportedly agreed the Iseyin axis is not safe in view of the regular breaches of security there.
That Monday meanwhile, it was alleged the about seven students who attended the only class that was held were “rented.”
In the meantime the charade continues even as a lecturer who tried to disseminate information as to the true state of things in respect of happenings at the new campus has landed himself in hot water.
“You cannot build a successful venture this way. Why must the managers rest on the plank of deceit, trying to deceive the governor and the world? If well thought-out, young students wouldn’t openly defy them. It is failure on their part, they have jinxed the plan with their deceit and that is why a week after commencement they recorded only a student in class and a lecturer had to receive N5, 000 from his HOD to be able to travel to teach students,” an analyst, Aduragbemi Onaleye, stated.
