A gubernatorial aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Oyo State, Engr Seyi Makinde, has said he has a document that “misled the Supreme Court from ceding Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso to Oyo State in 2010”.
He disclosed this in a statement he issued through his Director of Media, Prince Dotun Oyelade.
He stated that the problem facing the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso was political. He said, if elected as the governor of the state in the 2019 election, he would turn the unimpressive story about the citadel of learning around within one and half years.
Engr Makinde who also contested the 2015 gubernatorial election in the state and lost said that “the demise of the institution is political and that he is in custody of the document that misled the Supreme Court from ceding the university to Oyo State in 2010”.
The institution has been facing financial difficulties since the tenure of Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola of Osun State and Otunba Adebayo Alao-Akala of Oyo State. The underfunding of the institution by the two owner states has plunged it into innumerable strikes that had crippled academic activities.
Engr Makinde, a business tycoon, said the people of the two owner states, Oyo and Osun should hold him down to his promise to return the institution to its past glory within the first 18 months of his administration.
He said apart from being a “cradle of knowledge and recognised internationally before its politically induced problems, LAUTECH served as the number one commercial concern in Ogbomosoland that gave vent to the famed industry of indigenes and residents alike.”
Seyi Makinde said that a permanent solution must be found to stabilise the over 50,000 students and 1,200 staff. On his plans for Oke Ogun area of the state, Makinde said that a strategic proportion of the Ministry of Agriculture would relocate to Oke Ogun and Ibarapa zones to actualise and monitor government plans for the area’s food and cash crop potentials, while infrastructures in Ibadan and Oyo areas would be consolidated.
