Some representatives of the Senate of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) visited President Muhammadu Buhari to seek his intervention in what they described as the illegal removal of the institution’s Vice-Chancellor, Prof Oluwatoyin Ogundipe.
Led by their chairman, Prof Chioma Agomo, the UNILAG Senate members also visited the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, but were reported to have met the Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba.
While briefing the press after the meeting, Agomo said stated that although they did not meet the President, they dropped a letter of the resolution of the Senate.
According to her, Ogundipe’s sacking, without due process was a dangerous precedent for the university system in Nigeria.
Agomo said:
We are here on behalf of the Senate of the University of Lagos. We came to the Villa because the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a visitor to the university, so we thought we should pay a courtesy call to the Villa because we had gone to the appropriate authorities to give them the resolution of the Senate concerning the event that is unfolding on the university.
On August 13, we had an emergency meeting, attended by 91 professors. What was the issue? We want to make it known that the purported removal of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos did not follow due process. Therefore, it is illegal and cannot stand. We are not saying that the council has no right to remove the vice-chancellor.
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There is a laid-down procedure in the extant laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The law provides the procedure for the removal of the vice-chancellor that there should be a joint committee of the Senate and the Governing Council. This has not been followed. The rule of law has been trampled on the ground. We are talking about the life and soul of the rule of law, of fairness and justice, not just for the University of Lagos, but for the entire university system and indeed the entire nation.
We are not saying our vice-chancellor has or has not committed any offence. Binding allegations here and there is begging the issue. The issue is, if you say he has done something wrong, follow due process. And if he is found guilty, so be it.
The Senate Chairman added that Dr Wale Babalakin, the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of UNILAG, had lost the confidence of the Senate and that the council should be dissolved.
On Friday, however, Babalakin defended Ogundipe’s sacking, accusing him of looting the university’s treasury “recklessly.”
