The Vice Chancellor of the Bayelsa Medical University (BMU), Professor Ebitimitula Etebu has exonerated the State Governor, Senator Douye Diri of any involvement in the decision by the institution to disengage 198 persons improperly absorbed as casual workers in 2019 as the process violated the employment rules of the institution.
According to Etebu, the embattled 198 casual workers had to be disengaged due to their repeated restive nature and the demand for new lecturers needed for the several accredited courses of the Institution.
The Vice Chancellor of the BMU, Prof. Ebitimitula Etebu, who made this known while reacting to claims that Governor Douye Diri was responsible for the sack, said the administration of Governor Douye Diri has nothing to do with the decision to disengage the embattled workers of the Institution.
“The current Governor has nothing to do with anything. I am the Vice Chancellor, I told them, they were trying to destabilize the institution. Every time they were threatening, saying they are going to do this and that. And because of the hard times, we have tolerated them for all this while, but they are now trying to take advantage of that fact.
They go out and tell lies. These are the ones you are hearing. They go and write on Facebook and collude with the opposition. They use it to malign this current administration just to score cheap points for political gains. The institution decide to step them down due to constant security reports of their threats/restiveness to go on protest and make the University unmanageable.”
“ Aside that, in this last quarter of the year, we are going to be embarking on a flurry of advisory visits from over 13 Regulatory bodies and the NUC. This is a ritual in a specialized University like ours. Those outside the system do not understand these dynamics. We need professional lecturers, technologists, technicians etc. These casual staff were foisted on us. The University has a regulation of employing 3 academic staff to 1 non-academic staff. Currently as things stand, our ratio is the reverse. We will implode if we continue in this manner.”
Etebu, who however pointed out that the institution was following the guideline laid out by the National University Commission (NUC) on employment of workers with the university system having dual employment, one for the lecturer and one for the non-academic staff, and one for the professional in the health profession.
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