Excerpts:
By Dayo Adesulu
WHAT in your knowledge necessitates the perennial issues bedevilling LASU?
When I assumed office as Vice Chancellor of LASU, I started by dealing with problems of backlog of certificates. I even had to sign certificates for people that had graduated in 1994. As at that time, we were not graduating students, there had not been convocation. But now we have had three consecutive graduations.
There were no records, no database, so we had to ask students to register, that was how we established a database at the ICT center on campus.
When I came in, the University was spending over N13 million monthly and I felt something was wrong. So we had to look into it and we cut down the interest by 66.6%. We were able to cut down the interest from N13m to N5m.
We also had to deal with general issues of accountability in the system.
Mr Vice Chancellor sir, Can you justify the withdrawal of the 19 Ph.D certificates from lecturers of LASU and how true that your target was the ASUU Chairman?
We need to get something straight, the VC cannot award a degree and he cannot withdraw a degree. Only the Senate has that power. It is not true that few Senate members took the decision. Unfortunately, I don’t have the details here with me.
Previous senate
In fact, 93 senators were present and it is normal that if you start a session, everybody cannot be there when a particular issue comes up. So it is not the question of not knowing what was discussed.
But how did it start? Somebody raised an issue in the previous senate meeting about irregularities in the award of Ph.D. An example was raised of someone that was awarded a Ph.D and would not receive it because it was different. How can someone expect a Ph.D in International Business and you gave her Ph.D in Business Administration? We told the Dean, Management Sciences, go and put together the report, let us check. I recall at that meeting that the Dean wanted to start talking, but we said No, let us have everything in facts. At the subsequent meeting, we were briefed.
When the list came, it came with 19 names of people with PhDs. Senate deliberated and we divided them into three. Those that had no problem, those with mild issues and those with serious issues. In the mild group, we had about seven while in the serious group, we had five. Before I proceeded, the report that was presented showed us that in 2004, LASU had offered Ph.Ds in just three areas of its Postgraduate programme; in Business Administration, Management, and International business.
What does that means? It means that those are the only areas you could get a degree in. What you don’t have, you can’t give. It was noted that some people were given Ph.D in Business Administration Management. So when you were doing your citation, what was it on?
Letters were written to the affected people. To the best of my knowledge, all but two returned their PhDs. We sat down and looked at it in details. If you apply for Ph.D Business Administration and your conversion says Business administration, but your Ph.D reads marketing; to start with, marketing was never approved by LASU Senate, and for the issue of Mr. Idris, I won’t say much, I will just talk generally.
At this point in time, I know that a number of them have had their certificates corrected, and by the way the 19 people we are talking about are not all Academics in LASU, and I can tell you that they complied except for three. I can tell you 19 names were brought to senate. To say that one person was targeted is not true.
If you ask our students, they will tell you, they were the ones that fought for reduction in school fees. It was not an ASUU thing. So don’t say that oh because we fought for reduction in school fees that is why they did this to us.
It is our responsibility if we find out some irregularities in our records to set it straight. Before this issue came to the senate, it passed through some procedures, after which the senate deliberated on it and the Vice Chancellor signs. But if we discover that something had gone wrong along the line, we should be courageous enough to go back to it. This issue is a general issue, we are not looking at it from one side alone.
Was there prior information before the withdrawal of the certificates
We don’t go around informing people during procedures, however, we inform them when necessary. I have said I don’t want to say much on the issue of Idris. We will meet at the courtroom.
On interference in the students unionism, what is your take ?
I’ve gotten used to people saying so many things to cause trouble. On the 4th of November, I got a letter from Mr Idris requesting for the use of our facilities for the ASUU NEC meeting.
ASUU NEC meeting
The letter arrived on the 5th. He asked for the use of the Hall and the smaller Hall, they asked for security. I signed everything for free. They said they wanted to use the place for two days, 6th and 7th. ASUU never made a courtesy call to us, they never raised any issue. In fact, Monday the 8th, when they continued their meeting and had the press conference, don’t forget, 8 was not even part of what they asked for. This administration did not interfere with it.
I have never interfered in Students Union elections. Some people even came to tell me that I should pay attention to whosoever emerges. And I tell them that I am not interested. When issues arrive, we put them on the table and everybody looks at it. I recall the 2012 students union elections. I have my reasons why I remember because I came in November 2011. I think I was in Ikeja and I was told that so so and so was supposed to be my candidate and I was like, I am not interested. I don’t pay attention to certain things because when people want to seek relevance, they say a lot of things. I have never at any time been interested in who won any elections.
Some of the lecturers are accusing you on delay in promotion, what would you say is responsible for this.
To say that there was no promotion in 2013/2014, that is not true. For you to have any promotion exercise you must declare vacancy first. We told all the faculties to submit all the information, but some came to request for funds. You know when you are going from associate professor to professor, you send out some papers and so on. So to say that we have not done anything about promotion, it is at the level of the various faculties. I agitated for this to be completed so that we can move into the 2014/2015 exercise.
Whenever we have issues, we should be able to look at it and draw the line between what is affected and what is top to be discarded. I recall my first encounter, there was no problem 2011 to 2012, are you saying that there was no ASUU in LASU then?
ASUU in LASU
I could pick up the phone and call the Chairman and things work. Do we have a problem with NASU,no. Do we have problem with SSANU no. I want us to draw a line between ASUU-LASU Executives and ASUU-LASU. There is a difference. So when the minority decides to make so much noise that does not mean that the entire LASU is in mirage. I know that some ASUU-LASU members are now saying that enough is enough. You cannot continue to represent us and destroy us. But maybe within the next couple of days, we will know exactly what is happening.
I have tried to avoid focusing on some certain things, to leave the distractions so that we can have all the achievements we are seeing in LASU. Have I assisted some members in one way or the other? That is true. And when I say assist, I am not talking about conniving, no that is not what I am talking about. Have I come across some people with personal issues that I try to assist? Definitely. Some of them were grateful, some of them showed ingratitude, that is not what I look for, but it is not true, look at it, we had ASUU-LASU prior to Mr. Idris, the chairman then was Dr. Oluwatoki. He will come to me at times with issues, and I will tell him, this is what we can do and this is what we cannot do and he will understand.
I might encounter a particular situation that I want to deal with and I tell him and he advises me and I follow. Before then, we had a regime of Dr Akinyemi. Then I was contesting for a post in governing council and ASUU supported my candidature. I have not been against ASUU but we must learn to do things properly. Whatever we do, we must be able to accept correction.
As I speak there is no outstanding result with the Senate. If any one feels like he/ she has an outstanding result, let him go to the LASU site. Check student result, check your profile there. I got there months ago to upload over 36,000 profiles.
Do you have personal issue with Mr Idris, the present ASUU chairman of LASU?
Prior to this time, I had no relationship with Mr Idris. I can tell you that, the nearest thing was when he appeared for interview and got promoted. That is the nearest thing and he was not even ASUU chairman at that time.
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