Following reports that former governor, Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala, on Tuesday released a document which he claimed ceded Ladoke Akintola University Of Technology, LAUTECH, Ogbomoso to Oyo State, a former attorney general and commissioner for justice in Osun state, Mr Niyi Owolade, has said the document was a mere framework for a political solution to the LAUTECH crisis.
Owolade, who was a signatory to the document in 2010, called the attention of Alao-Akala to the title of the document which he said was self explanatory. He added that the political solution was worked on by stakeholders across the country who wanted a way out of the problem outside the cumbersome legal option already initiated by Osun state at the Supreme Court.
“The document which ex-governor Akala released is appropriately titled a “legal framework.” It was prepared based on concerns raised by stakeholders on the intractable crisis the university had been plunged into and the negative effects it was having on students and workers of the institution. The framework was to guide the NUC committee led by Prof C.F. Mafiana to come up with a comprehensive audit of assets and liabilities of the university and determine the financial commitments of each of the owner states to the university since inception as well as look at the future of the ownership structure. It was not a ceding agreement.
“The Mafiana committee was to come up with a report which would have been definite on whether or not a ‘divorce’ agreement was necessary between the two states on the ownership of the university. But the committee never came up with a decision. Even if it had come up with a decision, paragraph G (2) of the framework is there to take care of it. For the avoidance of any doubt, that paragraph of the framework as released by Chief Akala clearly states that if the expected decisions of the Mafiana committee were not implemented within sixty days, they became inoperable. That was in October 2010. Again, there was no decision from that committee on the joint ownership and nothing was signed in that regard by the two states.
“We hope this should be enough explanation on the document released by Chief Akala that it was not a ceding agreement as claimed by him,” Owolade said.
