Friday, March 29, 2024

Payment of allowance: OAU workers desert campus, accompany VC to EFCC

Members of staff of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, on Tuesday shunned their offices and duty posts in solidarity with the Acting Vice Chancellor, Prof. Anthony Elujoba, who was summoned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. 

The acting VC was said to have been invited by the anti-graft agency over the payment of hazard allowances to the institution’s workers.

It was reportedly stated that Elujoba, upon assumption of office, paid the teaching and non-teaching staff of the school the hazard allowances of over one billion Naira.

When the news filtered into the institution that the EFCC had summoned Elujoba, workers of the OAU, under the aegis of Non-Academic Staff of Universities and Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities trooped out in solidarity with the VC on Tuesday.

They converged at the Senate Building of the university, chanting solidarity songs and praise-singing the acting VC for paying their hazard allowances.

The workers had made provisions for buses and other vehicles to go in company with Elujoba, who was scheduled to appear before the Southwest Zonal Office of the EFCC in Ibadan, Oyo state.

Our correspondent gathered that the acting VC and his entourage got to the commission’s office around 12noon but were not attended to immediately.

The officials of the commission, according to the Chairman of OAU NASU, Wole 
Odewunmi, who spoke with our correspondent on the telephone, asked the VC to come back around 2:30pm.

“Yes, we (workers) had a solidarity demonstration today for our VC. We accompanied him to EFCC office in Ibadan, where we are as I am speaking with you. When we got there, they asked us to come back by 2:30pm. We decided to wait at the Catholic Chaplaincy in the University of Ibadan. By 2:30pm, we will return to the EFCC office,” Odewunmi said.

OAU workers had staged pockets of protests against their immediate past VC, Prof. Bamitale Omole, for refusing to pay the hazard allowances.

But the inception of Elujoba brought respite to the workers, who were paid their allowances within a month of his assumption of office as the acting VC.

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