UNILAG Crisis: Committee of VCs Calls For Due Process, Fingers ‘Ego Fight’

The Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Universities in Nigeria, CVC has said that the unfolding crisis rocking the University of Lagos (UNILAG) may begin to be viewed as a rift between the ‘sacked’ VC, Prof Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, and the Chairman of the school’s Governing Council, Wale Babalakin.

“So, it was like a hatchet job; we don’t want it to appear like that because of the integrity of UNILAG.

“The integrity is very high and we don’t want members of council to degenerate to this type of situation that people will be seeing it as ego fight between the Vice Chancellor and the Chairman of the council,” CVC Secretary General, Prof. Yakubu Aboki Ochefu, said in an interview with Voice of Nigeria.

Recall that the council, through the registrar, had announced the removal of the VC for alleged financial misappropriation. But, Ogundipe debunked the announcement maintaining that he remained the VC.

On Thursday, Ogundipe further briefed Mike Ozekhome SAN, to begin legal actions against the council.

In the interview, Ochefu maintained that due process was breached in the removal of the VC because Ogundipe was not given the opportunity of a fair hearing.

“The challenge we have here with the particular action is that the council did not follow due process and indeed the communication from the embattled Vice Chancellor is clear to that effect.

“It is very clear, just like the process of selecting a Vice Chancellor, you have a selection committee and they will advertise the job and interview the applicants and make recommendation to council and the council will appoint one person out of the three applicants.

“In the procedure of removing a Vice Chancellor, you also have to set up a joint council Senate committee that will charge the VC, there he will be given the opportunity to defend himself and then from there, the submission will be presented to the council and they will now take the decision”,Ocheku said.

He stressed that “what the university community is saying in UNILAG is that, this process was not followed, a committee was set up charging the Vice Chancellor of a number of issues, but he was not given opportunity to defend himself and we believe that here the law has not be properly adhered to.”

The CVC’ secretary said that the unfolding drama at the institution was not a healthy one, adding that the council needed to retrace its steps.

“We believe the government is also not happy about this. As CVC we advise the Council members to take a step back and allow the process of removing the Vice Chancellor as established by the law to take its course.

“It is a simple process, if you find the man guilty, the council can remove him, but they should go through the normal process, which is that of fair hearing”, Ochefu mentioned.

Furthermore, he knocked the council over the acting VC they had already appointed.

He said that what they did violated the laws of the university.

“The council has gone ahead to announce a new VC. The extant laws state that one of his deputies should be appointed to act.

“UNILAG has 3 deputy Vice Chancellors, none of them was appointed as the acting VC and somebody else entirely was appointed.

“This is going to pose another problem because Senate will not allow such a person to chair their meeting because they don’t know him within the context of laws establishing universities”, Ochefu said.

He added, “The chairman of the council knew that the tenure of 2 members of the Senate of UNILAG had expired so he waited for the members not to be in council to get majority vote.

“As it is now we have a stalemate and it is looking more in favour of the university Senate than the council.”