Members of staff of the Lagos State
University, LASU, Ojo, yesterday protested what they called bad administrative
style of the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. John Obafunwa, chasing Reghim out of campus
alongside other principal officers.
The staffers under the various trade unions
in the institution, including the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU,
Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU, and Non-Academic
Staff Union, NASU, listed victimisation of staff, non-payment of outstanding
salary arrears, violation of due process, ruining staff image in newspapers,
withdrawal of PhD certificates of some lecturers, denial of letters for elected
Governing Council and Senate members, as some of their grouses against the
authority, thus warranting the protest.
Aside the academic and administrative
activities that were paralysed in the process, both the Senate meeting and
Coconut Breaking festival as parts of ongoing convocation ceremony could not
also hold.
National Mirror gathered that the aggrieved
workers started the protest around 7.45am, blocking both the main gate on
Badagry Expressway and Iba gate with vehicles, despite the presence of armed
policemen and campus security officers, to prevent vehicular movement in and
out of the campus.
They were singing anti- Obafunwa songs, while
some laid siege to the coconut breaking festival venue where the
vice-chancellor and his team were expected.
It was further gathered that at 9:55am, Prof
Obafunwa and other principal officers were escorted into the main campus by
armed policemen and the protesting workers followed, chanting solidarity songs.
While approaching Block 1, which houses the
VC and other principal officers’ offices, the workers quickly blocked the
entrance and prevented him and his two deputies from gaining entrance.
They were pelted with sachet water, forcing
the policemen to hurriedly escort the vice chancellor and others out of hithe
arena and eventually out of the campus at 11.10am.
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