Emma Amaize
4 December 2011, Sweetcrude, WARRI- ACADEMIC Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, of the Federal University of Petroleum Resources, FUPRE, Effurun, Delta State, weekend, called off the work-to-rule, it declared, last month, over alleged one-sided actions taken by the Minister of Education on affairs of the institution.
Meanwhile, the National Universities Commission, NUC, facts-finding team to FUPRE, led by Professor Alhassan Bichi, has discovered that none of the degree programmes offered by the university could be accredited because the institution does not have enough lecturers to prepare the students.
Chairman of ASUU in the university, Dr. Akpofure Rim-Rukeh, whose association drew a battle-line with the Minister of Education and NUC in November over the recall of the vice chancellor, Prof Babatunde Alabi and registrar, Dr. L.O. Onwuka from their accumulated/terminal leave, as ordered by the governing council in October, confirmed that the work-to-rule was being suspended.
He said it was being suspended to enable the Prof Bichi team, which had been directed to take over and streamline academic programmes of the university to do a thorough job. The union leader said the team could not achieve result if the work-to-rule remained in place.
It was gathered that the Bichi team has found out a lot of things that went wrong with the school and had suggested that more professors and lecturers be employed in a jiffy, while all staff should bury the hatchet and work together for accreditation of the institution.
“Prof Bichi and his team are going round senior management staff appealing to them to bury the hatchet so that the university can move forward. It is a pity that despite the funds made available to the institution by the federal government, none of our academic programmes can be accredited because of incompetency of those employed to manage the institution,” an officisal disclosed.
“Can you imagine that professors and lecturers from other institutions were prevented by a cabal in FUPRE from transferring their services to the university even when they have been cleared by their institutions because some people here did not want competition or those that can look them at the face and tell them some home truths”, he added.
