AOCOED lecturers, mgt clash over 'missing' N188m

The lecturers of Adeniran Ogusanya College of Education, AOCOED, Ijanikin, Lagos, are trading words with the management of the institution over alleged disappearance of staff pension and cooperative funds totally N188 million.

The lecturers, under the aegis of Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union, COEASU, have issued a two-week ultimatum to the institution's authorities to explain the whereabouts of the funds or academic activities in the school will be shut indefinitely.

Chairman COEASU in AOCOED, Mr. Avosetinyen Sonayon, said: 'AOCOED is under siege. That is why there is need for us to liberate ourselves.

'The government gives N125 million to the school as annual subventions and has directed the school management to augment staff salaries, other emoluments and miscellaneous expenditures with its Internally Generated Revenue, IGR.

'We wrote to the Special Adviser on Education that the school generates over N1 billion as IGR and that there is no reason that it can't pay the over N188 million owed the cooperative.

'Government then directed management to pay us before three months. But the management argued that it is using the IGR to augment our salaries.

'Is that possible? Even if it is, why must you owe the cooperative?

'Our retirees are dying because they can't access their pension funds from the Pension Funds Administrators, neither can they access loan from the cooperative, because management have hijacked our funds.'

However, the school's Registrar, Mr. Bola Disu, said: 'All the issues raised are currently being addressed by government and the school management.

'The union has been in talks with the management over some of these issues, but the figures quoted are outrageous. 'I am not saying nothing is being owed, but what I do know is that what was inherited by this current administration went down because of our efforts. I don't know where the union got their figures.'