Kunle Adelabu & Mariam Akinloye
One year after the submission of the report of the Visitation Panel setup by the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, to unravel both the immediate and remote causes of the crises that engulfed Lagos State Polytechnic, staff unions of the institution have embarked on spiritual intervention for the release of the White Paper.
Members of the three staff unions of the institution Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), Senior Staff Association Nigeria Polytechnics (SSANIP) and Non – Academic Staff Union (NASU), gathered at the LASPOTECH Convocation Ground at the Ikorodu Main Campus, on Tuesday (yesterday) for an interdenominational prayer rally tagged, ‘LASPOTECH On Its Knees’, to seek God’s assistance.
According to the staff members, the session was to seek divine intervention for expeditious release of the government White Paper on the findings of the Visitation Panel to the Polytechnic.
At the gathering, prayers were offered in both Christian and Muslim ways as the staff members prayed for divine intervention.
The Visitation Panel, led by Barr. Adelowo Afolayan, was constituted in October 2019 in accordance with the extant law of the Lagos State Polytechnic 2012, Section C111 (subsection 1-5) and submitted its report in June 2020.
While accepting the report, the Special Adviser to the Governor, Mr Tokunbo Wahab, had stated that the government would act on the report to correct problems confronting the institution.
He also added that the findings by the panel would assist the government in resolving the crises in the Polytechnic.
However, the failure of the government to release a White Paper and implement recommendations made by the Visitation Panel, according to the staff of the Polytechnic, is a serious concern to them, hence, the reason for holding the prayer rally to make passionate appeal to God to make the Governor release the White Paper.
Comrade Akinrinlola Ibitoye, the Chairman of the institution’s ASUP Chapter, addressing members at the rally, said that they had gathered for prayer session to ask for God’s intervention in making the Lagos State Government, led by Mr Babajide Sanwo – Olu, to release the White Paper.
He said that the paper has solutions to many problems still confronting many staff members and the institution at large.
Comrade Folorunsho Odunuga Janet, the Secretary of the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Polytechnics, LASPOTECH Chapter, speaking with THE IMPACT, also stated that the convergence was to ask for divine intervention in the release of the government White Paper.
“ The Academic Staff Union, Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Polytechnics and NASU are converging here today to pray and appeal to the governor for the release of the white paper on our institution”, she said.
Emphasizing the importance of the White Paper, she said that the staff of the institution expected the government to implement the provisions in the document, stating that the staff believe that the implementation will address many problems confronting them and the Polytechnic.
“ln the past six years, the school has been ravaged by a crisis but we thank God that the governor intervened immediately after he assumed office”, she said.
“The governor ordered us back to lecture rooms and we listened to him. The institution was locked up by the Unions for six months. This was due to the fact that we never wanted the former Rector because of what he was doing to us.
“He was sacking and demoting us. We were just coming to the office like we were not workers but slaves. He enslaved us.
“We thank God for giving us a formidable Governing Council. The Council is doing a very good job and fortunately for us, we also have a very intelligent, humble and respectable Rector who is now directing the affairs of the Polytechnic.
“But it has been a year now that the report of the panel was submitted to the Special Adviser on Education (SAE) but it has not seen the light of the day. We are appealing to our governor to please release the white paper and whatever that is in it should be implemented.
“We have ghost silence in our institution at present and it is not peaceful at all. We have members out there who were sacked for joining the strike. There is nothing that they have done wrong.
She appealed to the governor to give quick attention to the ASPOTECH’s issue the same way that the Lagos State University (LASU) crisis was attended to.
“We want the CONTISS Migration, which has been implemented but which the former Rector discontinued and also demigrated us, reinstated because it is applicable in other institutions. NBTE may not accredit our courses. So, we are praying to God to please touch and softened he hearts of the people behind this crisis. We equally appeal to the governor to release the white paper and also implement whatever we have in it”, Comrade Janet pleaded.
The National Auditor, Senior Staff of Nigeria Polytechnics, LASPOTECH chapter, and a former Chairman of the union in LASPOTECH, Comrade Biodun Awoyemi, also speaking with our reporters, deplored what he called partiality by the action of the state government in the way they are handling crises in LASPOTECH and LASU.
“We are praying to God and crying to the whole world for the release of the White Paper from the visitation of panel report that was submitted last year, giving the fact that LASU that has the same visitation panel had their report ready in less than two months while white paper came out almost the other day”, the union leader said.
“LASU is an institution under the Lagos State Government and so also is LASPOTECH. Why the disparity? Why the partiality? That is why we are here, I know you are well aware what happened in 2019 and staff are not ready for any further problem.
“This is why we are coming with spiritual weapons to face those that are delaying the issuing of the white paper. We strongly believe that the governor has done his part and the delay in transferring the White Paper to the Governing Council could be traced to those evil powers of 2019. They are still at work.
“That is why we say let us cry to God and to the people and make the governor hear that some people are delaying the benefits that he has given us from manifesting in the lives of the staff”, he said.
Mr Ade Imasa Thomas, the ASUP Publicity Secretary, LASPOTECH chapter, also charged the government to release the document the same way it was done in the LASU.
“We are here today to seek divine intervention on the issue of the visitation panel setup by Mr Governor regarding the crisis in LASPOTECH. This panel has submitted its report over a year ago but as we speak today, the white paper is yet to be released by the state government and this has become a source of major concern because there was similar case in LASU and it was resolved within few months.
“The report has addressed all our issues, so, we are here to make a passionate appeal, through this prayer session, to the governor to assist us by urgently releasing the white paper on the visitation panel’s report on the Lagos State Polytechnic’s crisis”, he appealed.
A chieftain of ASUP in the Polytechnic said that the peace the staff of the institution has been maintaining is the peace of the graveyard due to the failure of the government to release the White Paper.
He said that the staff and the Governing Council have been working together to ensure that things work smoothly in the institution but that the failure to release the document, which he said will address the issue of CONTISS 15 Migration, is not helping matters.
“In 2019 when the school was thrown into deep crisis, it was due to a single agitation that the CONTISS 15 Migration should be implemented and the issue was complicated by the sack of NASU staff members who also joined the protest and it was on this basis that the government set up a Visitation Panel to look at the causes of the agitations”, he said.
“The governor also made a promise that all recommendations from the panel would be implemented. So, we all had faith in him and that made us to present our grievances to the panel. Surprisingly, today is 29th of June and the panel had submitted its report to the Special Adviser on June 25th last year, if I am not mistaken.
“It is now over a year and it is worrisome that we are still expecting the release of this paper to address issues of staff welfare, CONTISS 15 Migration and the reinstatement of staff that were illegally sacked. I was informed this morning that one of them is dying.
“Truth delayed is justice denied. The release of this White Paper will put soothing balm on our members’ pains. We are all requesting that the government should release the paper and implement its resolutions”, he said.
The Treasurer of the SSANIP, LASPOTECH Chapter, Comrade Ayanda Abiodun, said that the union members are resorting to prayer sessions to seek God’s intervention to call the attention of the government to their situation instead of going back to the street to protest.
“Our concern is that the White Paper should be released and that is why we are converging here today to seek divine intervention.
“This not a struggle against anybody; it is not a struggle against any authority or government. We are just appealing to God for His intervention in touching the hearts of those in possession of the White Paper to release it”, he said.
