I’m rendering free service at NOUN ― Obasanjo

FORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo has denied the report by a national daily that he earns N40,000 as a lecturer at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) where he bagged doctorate degree about a year ago.

He said the report quoting the Vice-Chancellor of NOUN, Prof Abdalla Adamu, was embarrassing and mischievous and demanded an apology from the office of the VC.

Obasanjo while reacting to the development in a statement made available to newsmen on Wednesday in Abuja by his Special Assistant on Media, Kehinde Akinyemi, said his service at NOUN was pro bono.

The statement reads: “The attention of the former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has been drawn to a newspaper report, published specifically on Page 8 of the PUNCH newspaper of Wednesday, March 20, 2019, with the headline “Obasanjo earns N40,000 as NOUN lecturer -VC.”

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“Ordinarily, this will have been unnecessary exercise, if it has been the usual shenanigans of the media to sell their newspapers, but, the very clear quotation of the Vice-Chancellor, Prof Abdalla Adamu on the headline made this clarification imperative and to set the records straight on His Excellency’s engagement with the University.

“In putting the records in right perspective, His Excellency which to draw the attention of the Vice-Chancellor to his letter dated 12 April 2018, which was written to the University Registrar, Mr Felix Edoka, when the Council offered him a Part-Time appointment as an Instructional/Tutorial Facilitator and Project Supervisor in the Faculty of Arts at the Abeokuta Study Centre.

“Specifically in Paragraph 3 of the letter, President Obasanjo wrote: “I will gladly undertake any of the functions mentioned in paragraph two of your letter pro bono and I hope that the functions will be flexible enough to accommodate my rather tight schedule.

“The former President affirmed that he has not received any dime either as salaries or otherwise from the University and not planning for such now or forever, as stated in his letter that the appointment was received with “pleasure and duty to give back to others out of what God and NOUN have given me.”

“The publication, which has generated mixed reactions from the general public and calls from far and near on the Elder statesman expressing concern, is, to say the least, embarrassing, uncharitable, mischievous and in bad taste, with immediate demand for a retraction and apology from the Office of the Vice Chancellor,” it said.