FUTA: ASUU kicks against appointment of first female VC

A crisis is currently brewing in the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA) as the university chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), on Thursday, kicked against the appointment of the new Vice-chancellor of the institution, Prof. Adenike Temidayo Oladiji, as the eight substantive Vice-Chancellor of the University.

The rejection of Prof. Oladiji was contained in a press statement by the Concerned Members of Senate, signed by Prof. P. A. Aborisade and Prof. M. B. Oyun, alleging that the selection process of the first female Vice-Chancellor was fraught with fraud and lacks transparency.

According to them, the appointment tramples Act No 11 of 1993 of the law of the university, (2003 as amended) concerning the processes of selecting a Vice-Chancellor.

According to the statement, “Section 3 (b) states: The Council shall select one candidate from among the three candidates submitted to it under subsection (3) of this section and forward his name to the President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces”

The Concerned members, however, noted that the new head of the University emerged through the election process rather than base the selection on merit by selecting the best, saying the resort to voting during the process is alien to the law guiding the selection of a Vice-Chancellor of the school.

ASUU explained that the candidate who came first during the selection process, Prof. Shadrach Olufemi Akindele with 73.9 per cent was dropped while Oladiji who came second with 73.8 per cent was selected as Vice-Chancellor through an election.

“The Election of a predetermined preferred candidate whose overall score in the process is lower than that of the candidate who came first throws merit overboard. Unfortunately, that cannot and will not be acceptable to us and shall not stand.

“We in FUTA stand for Merit. We found problems with the process at the very end of the procedure for the appointment of the VC when the council had to pick from the list of the three candidates submitted to it.

“Three nominees will be presented to the council in order of their positions. Under normal circumstances, the council should have picked the first based on merit. There is no lobby about it.

“In case, the council will not select the first, it must give cogent reasons why the first must be jettisoned. If the second would also not be picked, there must be a set of reasons for settling for the third.

“But in this case, the council in its own wisdom decided to leave the first, second and the third, and opted for voting between the first and the second, thereby disenfranchising the third. By the law, any of the three candidates presented is good enough for the position of VC.

“If the council wanted to go for voting, we would have wanted to see the votes of the three. But we have a vote for two and zero recorded for the third and that is where we believe something played out here. If you are not picking the best for the university, there must be cogent reasons and we will not accept it until the governing council does what is needed.”

The FUTA ASUU however, stressed their rejection ”in its totality the appointment of a candidate (Prof Adenike Oladiji) who came second in the process without any acceptable cogent reason of why the candidate who came first was dropped.

The resort to voting to select a Vice-Chancellor is alien to the law (Statute) guiding the selection process. The process is called selection intentionally by the drafters of the law rather than Election. The Election is a subversion of our law for specific and pre-determined ends.

“We, ‘Concerned members of FUTA Senate’, hereby call on the Governing Council to rescind its announcement of the candidate, go back and announce the appointment of the candidate who came First in the selection process. We will not accept anything less than this.

“We, ‘Concerned members of FUTA Senate’, call on our respected colleague Professor Adenike Temidayo Oladiji of the University of Ilorin to remain steadfast at her duty post at UNILORIN and not attempt to come to FUTA as Vice-Chancellor.

“We, ‘Concerned members of FUTA Senate’, equally advise our respected colleague Professor Adenike Temidayo Oladiji not to advertise herself as the Vice-Chancellor-Elect of our University FUTA.

It will be recalled that the University council, headed by the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council, Ambassador Godknows Igali, ratified the appointment of Prof. Oladiji as the first female Vice-Chancellor of the institution.

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