THE Federal University Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE) has denied that Vice-Chancellor Abayomi Fasina’s sudden decision to embark on a six-month leave is connected to the sexual harassment allegations rocking the university.
It also denied that it had nothing to do with the recent controversy surrounding the governing council’s decision, which allegedly cleared him of the accusations last week.
The university spokesperson, Foluso Ogunmodede, denied the claims while speaking to The ICIR on Monday that the university council approved Fasina’s request to take a six-month “accumulated annual and research leave” as he is entitled to it.
He emphasised that the leave has no connection to the Education Minister, Tunji Alausa’s recent rejection of the governing council’s decision to exonerate Fasina of the sexual harassment allegations.
“I have not seen any formal communication from the Ministry of Education regarding this” he said.
While declining to answer some of The ICIR’s questions, Ogunmodede stated that the governing council, during an emergency meeting on Monday afternoon, approved Fasina’s request to proceed on his accumulated research leave ahead of the scheduled end of his five-year tenure on February 11, 2026.
In response to questions about the circumstances surrounding the sudden decision and the timing, Ogunmodede said, “He has been working for four years, and he needs to go on leave.” He added that the leave, which spans 126 working days, begins today, Monday, April 14.
He further stated that the council has appointed Olubunmi Shittu, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academics), as the acting Vice-Chancellor of the university to manage affairs for the next 6 months.
“He is not on suspension so there is no need for proper handing over,” he added
Background
Folasade Adebayo, a married woman who joined the institution as a chief engineer in the physical planning and works department on January 2, 2012, filed a sexual harassment complaint against the VC on December 20, 2024.
Adebayo said that her ordeal began after Fasina became VC in 2021.
According to her, he revisited several issues, including staff promotions, giving her the chance to resubmit her previously denied promotion case.
The governing council eventually approved it, backdating her deputy directorship to 2015, a position that placed her directly under Fasina’s supervision.
She said that Fasina informed her of his sexual desires afterwards and she persistently turned down.
What followed Adebayo’s refusal was a flurry of intimidating acts, exemplified by verbal harassment and undeserved written queries.
“Issues began to emerge when the vice chancellor, Prof. Fasina, would publicly embarrass me and start to intimidate me for no just cause. Members of the university management would be truthful to remember a day (September 22, 2023) when I was walked out of the management meeting by the vice chancellor and he publicly said that he did not want to see me again,” she wrote in her letter to FUOYE’s governing council.
The ICIR reports that Adebayo was subsequently removed from her position as Acting Director on December 31, 2023.
She explained that a non-governmental organisation was said to have petitioned the Inspector-General of Police against the FUOYE management for continuous flouting of rules on finance, account operations, frauds and abuse of procurement process.
“ I was however invited to Police Special Fraud Unit, Ikoyi, Lagos, where I was informed by the police that the petitioner mentioned my name as a witness to a sexual indulgence move by the vice chancellor.
“I told the police that rather, it was the vice chancellor that tried to make advances to me which I rejected. They asked as to whether he touched any part of my body when he was making advances and I replied, NO.
“He did not touch me with hand but he was using his power and position to intimidate and harass me with the anger that I refused his advances,” she wrote.
The police however claimed that Adebayo had told them that Fasina did not sexually harass her and cleared him of any misconduct, according to a report credited to Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, Fasina’s legal representative.
“Recently, I saw a media write-up that the police had investigated the case of sexual harassment and cleared the vice chancellor, and that I wrote that he did not harass me. It is amazing how [my] statement made [to the police] can be interpreted so lightly,” Adebayo also wrote.
She said that when the harassment began, a governing council had not been formed, so she reported the matter to the FUOYE’s Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) in February 2024.
Adebayo attached a series of audio recorded interactions between her and Fasina to the letter submitted to the governing council as evidence.
The university’s chapter of SSANU wrote the governing council and issued a public statement accusing the vice-chancellor of sexually molesting its member.
The signatories to the union’s statement were immediately suspended by the governing council, which accused them of tarnishing the image of the institution.
However, after the intervention of the union’s national leadership, the governing council established investigative panels, which recently submitted their reports, culminating in the university’s announced verdict.
Despite substantial evidence, including audio recordings and documents suggesting unjustified disciplinary actions, the FUOYE governing council cleared Fasina of all sexual harassment allegations.
Ogunmodede while speaking to the ICIR confirmed that though other documents were exermined by the council, the audio recordings were not subjected to forensic examination.
“The parties to the alleged offence gave oral interview. And Correspondences were also considered, video, audio recordings, were also considered. And at the end of the day, the woman, engineer Adebayo agreed that there was no sexual harassment” he said
The council strongly condemned the secret recording of the Vice-Chancellor, describing it as a calculated attempt to blackmail him into confirming Adebayo as the substantive Director of Works, a position the council noted he had no authority to approve.
The council instructed Adebayo to submit a letter of apology to the council within seven days and was reprimanded for allegedly tarnishing the university’s reputation.
In reaction to the council’s verdict, it was reported that the minister of education rejected the council’s action, and demanded the “right thing must be done.”
The National Vice President and Chairman of Western zone of the SSANU, Abdussobur Salaam, in a statement on Thursday, said the council had by its decision laid a bad precedent and a new low for the Nigerian university system with “the grasp at straws in the desperate attempt to protect the villain while further victimising the victim.”
“This is the reason why we had maintained that the continued stay in office of the vice chancellor during the pendency of the investigation would compromise the fairness of the process. We have not been proven wrong.
“The council, with a Senior Advocate of Nigeria as its chairman, should have known that an investigation panel is a process and not an event. This process began over four months ago and SSANU has enough reason to assert that the process had been compromised within that period.” The statement read.
Can female students at FUOYE feel safe reporting harassment?
FUOYE Directorate of Gender Studies has paraded it itself as a strong advocate for victims of sexual harassment, encouraging them to speak out and stressing that “sexual harassers are predators” who are unlikely to stop unless reported.
The institution’s spokesperson said that council recommended certain guidelines.
“Especially regularly cyberbully and a training for both staff and students, they are not in place yet but I can assure you that the process of protecting the university from further experiencing this type of development will soon be in place,” he said.
Ogunmodede, who initially claimed that students have been reporting cases of sexual harassment by lecturers through a channel he clearly lacked knowledge of and couldn’t recall the exact number of cases reported, later stated that no sexual harassment cases had ever been reported except for those in 2021.
“The only happened around 2021, where a lecturer was dismissed for sexual harassment and ever since, there has never been case of sexual harassment, except for this recent investigation” he added.
He was unable to provide details on how the 2021 case was reported and could not recall the name of the lecturer involved.
Nanji is an investigative journalist with the ICIR. She has years of experience in reporting and broadcasting human angle stories, gender inequalities, minority stories, and human rights issues. She has documented sexual war crimes in armed conflict, sex for grades in Nigerian Universities, harmful traditional practices and human trafficking.