THE leadership of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Tuesday faulted the removal of Professor Oluwatoyin Ogundipe as the Vice-Chancellor of University of Lagos, by the university’s Governing Council chaired by Wale Babalakin (SAN), last week.
“The national leadership of ASUU received the news of the purported removal of the vice- chancellor of the University of Lagos by the governing council chaired by Dr. Wale Babalakin (SAN) with absolute shock and total disappointment,” said Biodun Ogunyemi, President of ASUU during a press conference in Abuja.
Professor Ogundipe was last week removed by the Wale Babalakin – led Governing Council of the university for alleged financial infractions among other issues.
Ogunyemi said the academic union was shocked about the VC’s removal because he was not taken through the due process.
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“We are shocked not because we regard Prof Oluwatoyin Ogundipe as a saint but for the fact that all available evidence indicates that he was not taken through the due process,” he said.
“In spite of Dr. Babalakin’s spirited efforts to defend the indefensible, it is now clear to all and sundry that there is more to the story coming from the senior member of the bar.”
According to the ASUU president, the union supports the UNILAG Senate’s rejection of Wale Babalakin-led Governing Council’s ill-informed decision to remove the Vice-Chancellor.
He urged President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately set up a special visitation panel to look into the crisis.
“We call on Mr. President, as visitor to University of Lagos, to immediately constitute a Special Visitation Panel to look into the immediate and remote causes of the events that led to the purported removal of Prof Oluwatoyin Ogundipe as VC of UNILAG with a view to bringing all found culpable to book,” Ogunyemi said.
He called on the National Universities Commission (NUC) to probe all fraudulent practices allegedly committed by “overzealous vice-chancellors who have compromised academic standards and subverting university ethos in the name of the so-called new normal.
“While we salute the courage and resoluteness of many vice-chancellors who have stood their ground in preserving whatever is left of the quality of Nigeria’s university education, our union will not hesitate to expose those who are prepared to sacrifice the system in the name of internally generated revenue.”
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