FUOYE, union trade blame over student’s death

The Federal University, Oye Ekiti, has blamed the death of a student of the institution, who was asthmatic, on Tuesday morning on the insensitivity of the striking members of the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities, which led to the closure of the institution’s clinic.

FUOYE Vice Chancellor, Prof Abayomi Fasina, accused SSANU of feeding its national leadership with lies about the university, which led to the national leadership to allegedly direct the union in institutions in Ondo, Osun and Kwara to proceed to the university on Monday.

Fasina, who was represented by the university management team led by Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Administration), Prof. Tajudeen Opoola, said that consequent upon misinformation by the FUOYE SSANU Chairman, Oluwaseun Faleye, that he was under attack, the institution was invaded on Monday by hoodlums and shut down.

The VC said, “We lost a student this morning in FUOYE who had asthma because he could not be taken to our clinic because the facility is under lock and key. It is true that students are on holiday, but not all of them are living on campus. It would have been easier for the student to be rushed to our clinic for urgent treatment, but our university gate is locked.”

Fasina, who said FUOYE management team could observe that the administrative Block of Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti was open, with people going about their activities and EKSU clinic functioning on Tuesday morning, wondered why EKSU SSANU allegedly incited hoodlums to invade FUOYE.

He said, “Total or comprehensive strike is not going on in EKSU. But the same leadership of EKSU SSANU went on air yesterday (Monday) to incite the public and even led some hoodlums to invade our school based on a false narrative he was fed with by Chairman FUOYE SSANU.

“Our own chairman was the one who gave false information to the National President (of SSANU). Since he gave the impression that he had been beaten and harassed. The National President allegedly directed that the leadership of their union in Ondo, Osun and Kwara should proceed to FUOYE to rescue the chairman. It is that impunity that the EKSU chairperson used. But we hope he won’t misuse the immunity”.

Fasina, who said the law would deal with the situation appropriately, said, “The university is not going to fold its arm and allow anybody in whatever name or allow any union to come and occupy our place. We have a way of dealing with such. This is Nigeria and nobody is above the law”.

The VC, who said that the SSANU chairman was “never been harassed or threatened by any security operative,” said, “The university is committed to continual maintenance of peace and security on our campuses”.

But the SSANU chairman, Faleye, who said SSANU duly notified the university of the seven-day warning strike, queried, “Is FUOYE the only federal university that is observing the seven-day warning strike? There are many schools that are under lock and key.”

Reacting to the allegation that the SSANU strike was responsible for the student’s death, Faleye said, “Before now, there was notice of strike. I have a memo that the university issued prior to the notice that we will be embarking on seven days’ warning strike that directed the students to vacate the hostels to avoid something of such.”

He denied the allegation that EKSU SSANU incited or led hoodlums to invade FUOYE, challenging the management to produce such evidence, alleging that rather, it was the university management that laid ambush for the SSANU monitoring team.

He said, “I think you are aware of the national directive of our union for all the branches to embark on a seven-day strike starting from March 18. Even before now, we have evidence of our correspondence with the management notifying them of the strike.

“They felt they could impose concessions on us, saying that we must give concessions and not follow the national directive. On Friday, they invited us to a meeting, asking us to give concessions. We told them no.

“They sent a written letter soliciting concessions to exempt the health centre, register others, but the circular from the national leadership of our union warned against granting such concession. We had privileged information that the Vice Chancellor was trying to use security to intimidate us.

“Between Wednesday and Friday last week, the DSS Director and the Commissioner of Police invited us, and we feel that this kind of intimidation is a national strike. Why would they invite us when it is a national strike? We felt we were not safe.

“On getting to the school gate we met armed Civil Defense officers. I was assaulted; it is the management that is using the security agencies to intimidate us.”