LAUTECH BANE; WHERE OUR PROBLEM LIES- DSM

PREAMBLE
Honours to all whom it is due, the activists, pen warriors, gladiators, comrades and figures that have been in various ways participating in the fight to get the long closed institution, LAUTECH, back to full academic activities. The walk to freedom they say is always long. This epistle is targeted at having a closer glare at the major factors behind the dwindling of the _once upon a time_ best state university in the country. The contributors to her menace and the loopholes that have cost her so dearly. Also, a reaction to the somewhat disturbing notation recently made by one of the visitors of the university.

CONTENT
The LAUTECH community has in recent years faced a lot of challenges from what was supposed to be an advantage of hers compared to other state owned universities in the country. The institution have the unpopular fortune of being co-owned by two states (that were one in the early day), but this fortune has been the major recipe to her ills. Despite having two parents in a case where the norm is having one, the school is still orphaned due to some reasons as highlighted below;

1.In economics, partnership enjoys more funds as more partners means more capital available but lacks the hasty and direct decision making the sole proprietor enjoys over his business. As in the case of business, partners in a partnership whom most often are entrepreneurs and only have their business to run are easily brought together to meet and decide on issues and the delay isn't that much, but that's not the case we have in the partnership ownership of LAUTECH. First, the partners are not providing the funds(subventions) to the institution as she's supposed to be enjoying from the partnership, a partner even opined recently that she begin to fund herself as other universities who happen to be privately owned are doing. Maybe we need to remind the two partners that the institution is a social service and not an enterprise like the ones they are comparing us with. Secondly, as stated earlier how easy it is to get business partners together, its extremely difficult almost impossible to get two state governors who have the whole affairs of a state and politics before them to meet and make a decision on a institution they've been handling with laxity but won't let go off. This bottleneck in decision making causes unnecessary delays before supposed to be urgent decisions in the institution are made, during the wait time, thousands of students are left suffering for it.

2. Secondly, mutualism can never be enjoyed when a party has lower or no benefits to render, the relationship becomes parasitic. The two states of Oyo and Osun can never enjoy the same financial strengths at a time, one might be in deficit while the other is a bit balance or vice versa. Definitely, when one is funding and the other can't, the funding party also automatically back out and the institution is short funded. When the party that was in deficit begins to level up the party that have been funding might feel she should also make up for all she already missed earlier on and this brings on issues on top of issue, leaving the institution in dire situation over a long period of time before compromise is reached.

3. Lastly, with the ailing government been witnessed across the country, failures coming in states times without numbers, LAUTECH is suffering more as she is been dealt with two blows at a time. Every government misdeed and industrial action in each state knocks on the institution, once we're just recovering from the fall of one state, the other comes up, and the institution keeps dwindling away over time.

"Two heads are better than one is the saying", but it is either LAUTECH doesn't have the two heads as it seems or have faulty ones that couldn't sum up to one.

Another major contributor to the bane of the institution is the management, the Yorubas have a saying that goes like "you can't fall for the external harm if the internal force is not pulling you down". The management body has been trying all she could in rescuing the institution but maybe their efforts is not enough or wrong.
First, the management has failed to be transparent with the dealings with the two states. For some politicking that is only understandable to them, they were and are still trying to cover up the mess of the two visitors. Running the school with the internally generated revenue (IGR) till it ran dry, instead of calling for the head of the visitors who have failed in discharging their civic duty. Also, declaring an indefinite mid-semester break to portray everything being normal to the public when in actual sense, the staff unions are the ones protesting their non-payment. These two cunning actions are questionable and calls for the management to make amends.
Secondly, you can't fully blame the visitors for failing to provide you with subventions when you have not scaled up to the expectation that birth the creation of the institution. Just like most other government institutions in the country, it is obvious the institution comes short of what the modern day demands of a university of technology. Researches are almost no longer existing in the university, practicals that meets the day's technology are nowhere to be found on the campus, syllabus of the past generations is still being used and practised, students are still been extorted for manuals, practicals and assignments, modern facilities for sports and extra curricular activities are nowhere to be found, science laboratories are all dilapidated and the few new ones are just another form of classroom as they suffer lack of equipments, and the list goes on.
If the owner states are even feeling reluctant of coming in handy for the institution, make them see reasons why they must.

CONCLUSION
We urge and advocate for a permanent consolidation of the two owner states of the institution as they insist on not going their separate ways. Also call on them to come up with a blueprint that will ensure the smooth running of the institution for the foreseeable future in aspects of finances and decision making, doing away with the thinking of the university running on its own as it's a social service and will always remain their responsibility.
The school management should also make amends to the highlighted falls and loopholes from their side as highlighted above. Its true the school is not self dependent, but it should be self sufficient with the resources from within and its visitors. That of course is their responsibility.

Viva Aluta,
Democratic Socialist movement (DSM), LAUTECH Chapter.
08137505967