Edo governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Monday Okpebholo has lamented what he described as the neglect and mismanagement of the state owned Ambrose Alli University (AAU), Ekpoma, Edo State.
The lawmaker said AAU under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led Governor Godwin Obaseki administration has lost its glory and starved of proper funding.
He said it was shocking that workers of the institution were being subjected hardship, penury infrastructural deficit and untimely death due to lack of purposeful plan and direction.
He however promised that the institution under his leadership as governor of Edo State would receive proper and adequate funding.
“Tertiary institutions in Edo State have suffered total neglect in terms of funding and provision of critical infrastructure under the present PDP-led government of Edo State.
“Apart from the outright closure of some of the institutions by the present government leaving the workers to suffer untold hardship, penury and death, others have been subjected to a debilitating self-sustenance policy imposed by the state government.
“In particular, Ambrose Alli University Ekpoma in the last three years has been completely abandoned and left in the hands of an illegal body unknown to law, called the Special Intervention Team (SIT), which has decimated the university.
“An APC-led government of Edo State under my leadership, when elected, is committed to reversing this horrible trajectory of our tertiary institutions so that they can genuinely produce world-class graduates that would service the critical demands of our industries and other sectors of the economy.
“Consequently, all the state’s institutions shall be well funded both in terms of recurrent and capital expenditures. We shall ensure that the institutions are governed in line with best practices all over the world through governing councils,” he stated.