The Academic Staff Union of Universities of the Lagos State University, Ojo, has raised alarm that the institution’s authority is planning on using security forces to arrest its members on trumped up charges of burglary and theft of documents.
Few weeks ago, the union raised alarm over the professorial promotion of the Vice- Chancellor, Olanrewaju Fagbohun, and petitioned the Governing Council of the university, alleging that his promotion was illegally backdated by the past Registrar of the university, Akinwunmi Lewis, who allegedly misinterpreted the decision of the Council which was taken on May 7, 2014 to promote the vice-chancellor by backdating the promotion to 2008.
PREMIUM TIMES reported the rebuttal of the VC to the allegations of ASUU describing them as unfounded and baseless.
Mr Fagbohun said the registrar of the university at that time never knew that he could become the vice-chancellor in 2016, hence, he could not have started doctoring documents for him in 2014.
“Apart from that, in 2012, I wrote a petition that I was entitled to be promoted as far back as 2007/2008 and that the manner they have implemented the rules was unfair to me. The Governing Council took all the petitions and not my own alone.”
He said the current Dean of the Faculty of Law was also a beneficiary.
“So, to say that the former registrar doctored documents for me to get a chair is a lie. It is just another futile attempt at creating chaos in the university,” the VC claimed.
However, ASUU in its fresh statement issued and signed by its Secretary and Assistant Secretary, Tony Dansu and Adeolu Oyekan respectively, said the duo, who had earlier been queried by the management for allegedly being in possession of a ‘secret document’ of the university, and are currently being monitored by security operatives for possible arrest.
“Following the petition and specifically on the 23rd of July, 2018, the Secretary and Assistant Secretary of ASUU-LASU, who signed the petition on behalf of the union, were queried for being in possession of copies of the promotion letter of Dr. Fagbohun. Now, there are claims that the original file copy of the letter is missing at the Faculty of Law, and we are aware that these officers of the union are being monitored by security forces for arrest on trumped up charges of burglary and theft of document.”
The union said it was surprised that the vice-chancellor had escalated a “purely internal matter” by engaging the media, which betrayed the management’s position that all internal mechanisms should be exhausted before externalising issues.
“The rush to the press is yet another effort to preemptively change the narrative, turn this matter on its head and make the vice-chancellor look like a victim, even as he seeks to silence the union,” ASUU said.
Meanwhile, when contacted, the spokesperson of the university, Ademola Adekoya, who spoke on behalf of the VC, denied the allegations of planned arrests.
Mr Adekoya said the VC has no case with the union as there are laid down rules and regulations which led to the query written to the members over the allegations of possessing documents illegally.
PremiumTimes
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