The Governor of Oyo State, Engr. Seyi Makinde has approved the appointment of Professor Olaniyan Olanrewaju as the pioneer Vice Chancellor of the recently upgraded Emmanuel Alayande University of Education.
The Governor disclosed the appointment today while receiving reports from the Joint Task Force Committee on LAUTECH Teaching Hospital and Emmanuel Alayande University of Education.
The Governor received the reports from the two committees: The Special Task Force on the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) Teaching Hospital led by Professor J. T. Arotiba; and the Emmanuel Alayande University of Education Planning and Implementation Committee led by Professor Deji Omole.
Makinde assured that recommendations of the separate committees would be implemented in no distant time, appreciating the chairmen of both committees, Professor Juwon Arotiba and Professor Ayodeji Omole, and their members, who he said performed beyond expectations on the assignments given to them.
Speaking on the report of the LAUTECH Teaching Hospital Committee, the governor said that the state government would create a Directorate for Tertiary Healthcare in the Ministry of Health, which would be in charge of the tertiary health institutions.
He said: “Let me on behalf of the government and the people of Oyo State thank Professor Juwon Arotiba, and your team for a job well done.
“You went beyond the assignment given to you in terms of what you have delivered to us. We wanted the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria to accredit our MBBS programme. Not only did you get that done, you were also able to increase our admission quota from 75 to 120.”
He added, “Usually, the way the government operates is, you give us your report, we set up a committee to evaluate it. We set up another committee to evaluate the report of the first committee until we get an implementation committee. But because you have opened up everything, we don’t need any committee to review your recommendations.
“Let me give the assurance that we will quickly move to ensure that the report is implemented.
“So, let me say that the reward for hard work is more work. We may be coming to tap you shortly again for some other assignments and I do hope and pray that you will not turn down our request because this is our state and we have to pull our support together to assist the state to grow.”
While announcing the appointment of Professor Olaniyan as the Vice Chancellor of the Emmanuel Alayande University of Education, Oyo, Governor Makinde said workers of the College of Education should not entertain any fear as his administration would not sack any staff of the institution.
According to him, his administration is not known for inhuman acts of sacking workers indiscriminately, stressing that those that were sacked by his predecessor were reabsorbed into the civil service when he got into office.
The governor said: “We want to, once again, thank Professor Deji Omole. The journey started before I became the governor of Oyo State. Let me put in proper context what you have had to do to get us to this point.
“People were criticising us when we came in and we said, ‘look, the rot in our tertiary institutions in Oyo State is unquantifiable’ and we decided to bring in a consultant so that we can ask people who ideally should be responsible for managing these institutions, to give account of what they are doing.
“Sometimes, they come to us to say the subvention is not enough and when I asked about what is happening to their IGR, nobody wants to talk to me about the IGR. They only want to talk about subvention and more money.
“We put in the consultant and the story changed a little bit. We were seeing money to get certain things done, but then, we were hearing from everywhere that the Consultant is not allowing the Governing Council to function; they are not allowing money to be spent as and when necessary, and they said we should scrap the Consultant and get back to the normal way of doing things.
“What you just described from EACOED to the extent that, for nine years there was no audit report and even the audit report for 2013 was not paid for. I think we are validated in our decision to bring in a Consultant.
“However, I know that with the brief discussion I had with the representative of the National Universities Commission (NUC) this morning, we may not be able to sustain that for long. We may also take away the responsibility from the people that are saddled with the task of managing the tertiary institutions in Oyo State.
“So, I am prepared to let the Consultant go but we will also need to be sure that the university and tertiary institutions in Oyo State will run under their Governing Councils as intended. So, we will have to give ourselves a little bit of time to gradually phase out the consultants and bring in people of integrity to run the system.”
The duo of Prof Arotiba and Prof Omole, in their separate remarks, commended Governor Makinde for the confidence reposed in them and the members of their committees, stating that they were assured that the government will be speedy in implementing the reports.
This was just as they pledged their continued support to the government.