Crisis: Buhari directs OAU Senate to appoint acting VC

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Senate of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) to immediately appoint an acting vice chancellor for the institution.

This was as he directed the reopening of all offices in the institution for normal administrative and academic activities.

Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Julius Okojie, made the position of the president known on the crisis rocking the institution.

By this directive, President Buhari has revoked the appointment of the Deputy Vice Chancellor of the university, Professor Ayobami Salami, as the new vice chancellor.

It will be recalled that the authorities of the university, in June, shut the campus indefinitely, following protests by workers over the appointment of Salami as the new vice chancellor by the governing council.

Registrar of the university, Dotun Awoyemo, had noted that the university was shut indefinitely for the safety of students and staff, as a result of the crisis that engulfed the institution following the appointment of the vice chancellor.

Workers of the university under the aegis of Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and Non-Academic Staff of Universities (NASU) of OAU had begun their protests and strike since June 6, after taking the university authorities to court over the appointment of Salami as the new vice chancellor.

However, NUC Executive Secretary, in a terse statement on Monday, said: “President directs Senate of OAU to appoint acting vice chancellor.

“President directs reopening of all offices in OAU for normal administrative and academic activities.”

Meanwhile, the Public Relations Officer, Mr Abiodun Olanrewaju of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Mr Abiodun Olanrewaju told Nigerian Tribune on Monday that “what really happened is that the Federal Government announced the dissolution of the governing council and also instructed that the processes that may lead to the appointment of a substantive vice chancellor be put on hold, pending the determination of the court case; and the follow-up to that is what the Federal Government did today by telling us that the Senate of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, should immediately recommend a qualified person for appointment as an acting vice chancellor for the university. That is where we are now.”