Academic Staff Union of Universities, Obafemi Awolowo University branch, (ASUU OAU), has tasked the management of the university to look into operations of the school’s health centre rather than suppressing the voice of the students.
The Management of the university had shut the school due to a protest embarked upon by its student as a result of the death of a final year student of the Department of Foreign Languages, Adesina Aisat after a brief illness. The students claimed the Health centre did not attend to the deceased adequately.
The union, in a statement signed by its Chairman, Dr Adeola Egbedokun, obtained by Vanguard on Sunday stated that the death of Miss Adesina was avoidable but due to the ongoing industrial action among the Association of Resident Doctors in the country.
The statement reads, “ASUU OAU Congress mourns the untimely death of Miss Adesina Omowumi Aishat, a Part 4 female student in the Department of Foreign Languages and commiserates with her family, mates and the entire university community. The union received the news of Miss Adesina’s death with rude shock and is worried about the events that followed the announcement of this incident, particularly at a time that second-semester examinations were in progress.
“The circumstances that surrounded the death of this promising young woman, in our view, testify to the fact that the Nigerian State is in a state of crisis: Resident doctors are on nation-wide strike over broken promises on the part government. It is indeed unfortunate that a nation that is sixty-one years old and is gladly celebrating it cannot provide quality and affordable health care and education for its teeming youth. On the contrary, our nation is always quick to suppress and repress them whenever they dare to express their lawful demands.
“ASUU OAU would like to urge the University Administration to pay attention to the activities at the Health Centre to restore the confidence of members of the university community in it, as we cannot continue to pretend that all is well at the facility. In our judgement, this sad occurrence provides the university with an excellent opportunity to set up a panel of inquiry, made up of credible members of the community to look into the operational, equipment and workforce needs of the OAU Health Centre, and decisively address these.
This will go a long way in addressing the many complaints of staff members and students about the facility.
“Meanwhile, ASUU OAU wishes to admonish students to be law-abiding and avoid acts that can undermine the peace of the university community and Ile-Ife as a whole in the course of expressing any legitimate protest”
