The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has commended the President and Visitor to the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Muhammadu Buhari, for recognising the role of the institution’s Senate in its governance.
In an interview, the Chairman, ASUU-UNILAG, Dr. Dele Ashiru said it was praiseworthy that Buhari allowed due process by respecting the legal role of the Senate – a role that the suspended Governing Council chairman, Dr. Wale Babalakin failed to recognise.
He said: “It is a right step in the right direction. Worth gratifying is the recognition of the position of the Senate as a critical organ in the governance structure of the University.
“The same Senate which Wale Babalakin treated with disdain, with contempt, with absolute lack of respect, the Visitor of the University through the Honourable Minister should be commended for standing firm in defense of the rule of law – particularly by asking Senate to reconvene with a view to selecting an Acting Vice-chancellor in compliance with the law.”
Ashiru added that with the Visitation panel all accused would be given fair hearing.
“An accused is deemed innocent until he or she is proven guilty. This visitation panel will afford each party the opportunity to give their own side of the story,” he said.
Regarding the Acting Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Theophilus Soyombo’s statement that he had step aside, Ashiru said he was not recognized by the law in the first place.
“And for the so-called vice-chancellor – the surrogate vice-chancellor, he need not step down because he never existed in the face of the law,” he said.
When asked to react to the backing out of the Non Academic Staff Union (NASU) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) from the joint resolution of workers’ congress to protest Prof. Toyin Ogundipe’s sack, Ashiru said: “That question should be better answered by SSANU and NASU. But I feel sorry for them. I feel very sorry for them,” he said.
On his part, NASU-UNILAG chairman, Comrade Kehinde Ajibade, said: “It is a good welcome and good development.”
Commenting on the matter, SSANU Chairman, Sola Sowunmi, said the union is calling for calm among it’s members and prayers for the University for the bad publicity.
“I don’t have any comment. My only side of it is that we are just urging our members to be prayerful, be calm and peaceful and we just believe that God’s counsel would prevail.
“It is a development that is not too pleasant for us because the university name has been dented one way or the other,” he said.
In a press release announcing his stepping down, Prof. Soyombo said he accepted the role for to restore peace in the university.
“As I noted in my address to a cross-section of staff on 19th August, 2020, I accepted the offer to serve as a call to service, with the objective of restoring peace and stability in the university. It is my prayer that the peace and stability that we so much need and desire at this time be restored very quickly, so that the University of Lagos can continue to march on as the University of First Choice and the Nation’s Pride. I urge all our staff and students to continue to go about their lawful activities in a peaceful manner,” he said.
