Members of the Academic Staff Union Of Universities (ASUU), Ambrose Alli University (AAU), Ekpoma Chapter have stressed that the Special Intervention Team(SIT) established by the state government “has become the albatross of the University,” adding that “Obaseki-led administration in the State has deliberately made it so.”
Addressing a Press Conference, Dr. Cyril Oziegbe Onogbosele, Chairman of the Union, said: “Surely, the University has been experiencing the worst form of maladministration as evident in the absence of a Governing Council and substantive Principal Officers since 2021. Ours is a university that is presently facing the darkest period of zero funding; staff victimization; intimidation, imposition and dispensation of hardship on staff as evident in selective payment of salaries; outright denial of salaries to many staff up to twenty six (26) months; deliberate non-remittance of deductions from staff salaries in favour of staff unions and welfare/cooperative societies; delay in staff appraisal and promotion; bias in, and politicization of staff disciplinary matters and anti-workers policies in the University.”
Going further, he stated: “As a union, we have consistently condemned the charade called SIT and all it represents. In order to cow staff unions and the entire university into complete submission to its whims and caprices, the SIT resorted to the use of hunger as a weapon against union leaders and many other staff of the University through deliberate denial of salaries and promotion, pay-cut, witch-hunt and intimidation.
“Other unfriendly/pernicious workers’ policies, include the fraudulent implementation of Edo Health Insurance Scheme (EDOHIS), Contributory Pension Scheme (CPC) and payment of access fees to enter our place of work in the University. The Union condemns the use of CPC to intimidate and harass our members to voluntarily retire from the services of the University on or before 29th February, 2024 against the University’s law and scheme of service.”
According to Dr. Onogbosele, “the University does not have a Governing Council at the moment. The current management model in the University is bizarre and far from the ideal style of university management and administration in the country. The current administrative and management structure of SIT in the University is antithetical to university autonomy in terms of procedural self-governance, substantive independence and academic freedom.
“As a result, the University is being run on directives from the State House through the SIT, resulting in the University’s statutory organs, including Senate, functionally non-existent. We condemn a situation where the University’s Senate is no longer useful as all its functions have either been usurped or taken over by the SIT.
“For instance, SIT has taken over academic matters in the University to the extent that SIT now examines courses and fixes scores for continuous assessment (CA) in the University by arbitrarily raising it from 30 to 50 marks in a desperate bid to compel students to pay fees. This is a direct breach of the University’s law, Senate rules and NUC guidelines on continuous assessment. All acting Principal Officers of the University have become nominal officers with SIT.
“The SIT has completely taken over the administration of the University. With SIT, the acting Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Sonnie Adagbonyin is not better than a secondary school prefect. He operates at the mercy of the SIT to the extent that he cannot give order for the electricity generator in the University’s Administrative Complex to be switched on without the approval of Mr. Austin Osakue, the de facto SIT Chairman in Benin City.
“Workers have been coerced to pay money to access their offices in the University. Driven by the desire of the University Administration to generate revenue internally, SIT/University Administration, without consultation and authorization by staff, forcefully deducted ‘access fee’ from staff salaries.
“All attempts, including letters written by our Union to the University Administration calling for a reversal of the deduction were ignored. AAU, Ekpoma is the only public University in the State and the country as a whole where workers pay fees to have access to their offices. The situation in the University is pathetic, viewed especially against the backdrop of a university in a democratic dispensation.”
