Ajimobi approves 65 years retirement age for Ibadan Poly staff

By The Citizen

Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State on Friday approved the implementation of the 2012 harmonized retirement age for members of staff of The Polytechnic, Ibadan which put their retirement age at 65 years.

The governor, who gave the approval on Friday while speaking at the 28th convocation ceremony of the institution, said that this was in line with his administration's consciousness of the need to take care of the welfare of the state's workforce without them necessarily agitating for it.

He said that government would not hesitate to grant approval to every legitimate demand of the staff unions, adding, however, that members of staff should reciprocate the gesture through hard work, dedication and unflinching commitment to performance of statutory duties.

Governor Ajimobi commended the leadership of the three unions in the institution for the maturity they had demonstrated during the course of pressing for their demands.

He also promised to consider the request by management of the institution for upward review of the salary subvention in order to give room for recruitment of more staff into areas of critical needs, urging, however, that the authorities of the institution should be more pro-active in generating addition funds for the institution through consultancy services. The governor said that the implementation of the Prof. Clement Kolawole-led Visitation Panel, whose White Paper had been released, would be beneficial to staff, students and the authorities of the institution.

He said that government would also welcome new ideas from the stakeholders for the purpose of uplifting the institution to a greater height.

Governor Ajimobi expressed concern over the admission challenges currently being faced by the institution which, he said, had, to a large extent, denied sizeable percentage of qualified candidates from having access to polytechnic education.

Consequently, he promised that the institution's facilities would be upgraded to cope with more intakes, adding that efforts would also be made with other state governments in the South-West zone to influence the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) to review its decisions on the admission quota for polytechnics.

While congratulating the graduands, the governor urged them to go all out and convince the world that they were not to be relegated, by showing high entrepreneurship skills and providing services which would contribute to the improvement of the nation's Gross Nation Product.

“The Polytechnic, Ibadan has succeeded in producing technical and professional manpower in different fields who have achieved and made their impact felt in public and private sectors within and outside Nigeria,'' he noted, urging the graduands to keep up the tradition.

The governor also inaugurated the first phase of the institution's administrative block and an ICT building as part of activities for the ceremony.

Also speaking, the Chairman, Governing Council of the institution, Prof. Oladapo Afolabi commended the state government for its unflinching support for the activities of his council, which he said had helped the council tremendously in repositioning the institution.

He also appealed to the government for the improvement of the welfare of the staff members in order to motivate them into delivering excellent services.