OSCOHT-ILESA: Crisis Looms as Career Officers and Political Appointees Interest Clash Over College Money

There is a looming crisis between Provost of Osun State College of Health Technology, Ilesa and members of its Governing Council of the institution over queries on provost.

According to a source, within 24 hours, two different queries were issued to the college provost, Dr. L.O Raheem by the college board members.

The source who spoke on condition of anonymity said the need for governor Ademola Adeleke to intervene become paramount.

He advised the governor to have a monitoring team to stand as intermediary between political appointees and civil servants especially those in the academic environment.

Our Correspondent gathered that, the governing council had on February 5 , 2024 issued a query to the college Provost .

The query which was signed by some college board members include the following persons : Sen. Felix Kola Ogunwale ; Chief. Adenike Serifat Ajagbe Alhaji Akinlabi Isiaka, Chief Dupe Odesanmi and Hon. Akinjimi Sunday stated “In view of the below certified points which are as follows.

“On the 20th December 2023 you sent a letter to the Governing Board that your limitation as approved by the former Governing board is 2.5 million while the chairman can approve up to 10 million and the total governing board may approve above 10 million, copy of the letter hereby enclosed.

“On 24th January 2024, you sent a letter written from the ministry and dated 23 of September 2023 (from the monitoring Department) given you powers to approve up to five Million Naira (#5M). Probably you forgot that you have this type of letter before you wrote the first letter because this suggest a lot of things.

“Since it is the prerogative of the board to give you threshold on approvals, the Governing board have met and have resolved to give you powers of approvals as follows:

“The Executive Governor 20 Million and above

“The Governing Board 10 Million and above

“Joint Signature of Provost and the Chairman 4) Provost 500,000 to 10 million below 500,000

“It is now against the law of the Governing Board to split any payment for conveniences.

“It is now against the law to prevent the Board from having Access to all accounts, Operated by the College

“The Sum of Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira only should be set aside monthly for petty cash use.”

And few hours later, another query was issued against the Provost while waiting to respond to the first query. The query which was issued February 6, 2024 was signed by Hon Felix Kola Ogunwale and Akinjimi Sunday Finance Subcommittee Chairman

“Explain why you are directed by the chairman to nominate two brilliant students that have passed entrance examinations but lack finances to enable the chairman grant a personal full scholarship to such student for about four months now, but you refused knowing fully well that such may increase the figure of PDP votes during 2026 governorship election.

“Explain why you refused to cost the enclosed project as directed by the board before executing them, you throw away the Chairman request and executed the project without costing them.

“Explain why you refused the entire board to be aware of the totality of the students in the College for possible statistic to determine the exact income of the college

“Explain how you have spent the College accrued income since September 2023 till date.

“Explain the Bank balances as at 30th November 2023 Visa-a-Vis the balances as at 3th January 2024 and what you use the difference for.”

The source claimed that, “the victimization of the provost came as a result of the fact that the chairman was enforcing the Provost to procure a car worth of #75m to him while the total income of the college was less than #70m”

“The Provost dilegently informed him of the activities of the but he refused on the premise that UNIOSUN bought vehicle worth of #75m to it’s Governing board chairman” The source concluded

As of time of filing this report , it was gathered that the Provost is yet to respond to the queries.