LASU Crisis: VC Moves To Withdraw Ph.D Certificates Of 14 Opposing Lecturers

Posted by African Examiner education, Latest Headlines, News Friday, November 21st, 2014

The crises rocking the Lagos State University (LASU) has snowballed into confrontation between the Vice Chancellor, Prof. John Obafunwa and lecturers of the school as the VC is moving to withdraw the Ph.D certificates of 14 lecturers opposing his administration in the school.

At the meeting of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Lagos Zone on Wednesday, the lecturers complained that the LASU VC has been moving to withdraw the Ph.D certificates of 14 lecturers who participated in the industrial action to demand for the reversal of the tuition from N350,000 to the old rate of N25,000.

They also alleged that Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State has failed in its responsibilities as the visitor to LASU.

The union, led by the Coordinator of ASUU, Lagos Zone, Dr. Sola Nasir said the victimisation of the lecturers was the fallout of the strike embarked upon by the lecturers to demand for the reversal of tuition in the institution, adding “This was one of the strategy adopted to victimize the lecturers.”

Nasir said “The last visit of the Governor to the institution was in 2009. And according to the law of the university, it stipulates that the visitor to the institution must visit once a maximum of every five years. And since the commencement of the various crises in LASU, the visitor (Governor Babatunde Fashola) has failed to visit the institution to address the issues. He must do this in order to address the issues rocking the institution.

“And he has less than six months to do this. If he failed to do this on time, he will be leaving the issues rocking the institution for the next governor to handle and that wouldn’t be proper. He must constitute a visitation panel even though he couldn’t implement the recommendations made by the panel,” he added.

Explaining the strategy, LASU-ASUU, Dr. Idris Adekunle, who was among the 14 lecturers, said “The issue of this certificate withdrawal is one of the victimization that we have noticed. Now, they claim that it should have been Ph.D Business Administration not Ph.D Business Administration (Marketing).”

“They said that I should return the certificate. The management is asking me to return my certificate without stating the time for the certificate re-issuance. They claim that they intended to look into some matters. They claimed that there was an error on the certificate. But the certificate was signed by the current Vice Chancellor, Professor John Obafunwa. Rather than apologise to me and others for the error, they demanded for my Ph.D certificate.

“Also, the management claimed that they intended to investigate and without concluding their investigation, they withdrew someone’s certificate. For instance, Professor Tunde Fatunde was interdicted by the institution’s management for being rude to a Registrar (Mr. Akin Lewis),” he said.

However, in his reaction to the allegations, the Vice-Chancellor of LASU denied all the allegations, saying most of the issues raised were pure lies against his administration, and that the unions members are part of the long years of the rot on the campus, and so must be prepared to be cleansed.

Obafunwa, who referred to the unionists as blackmailers, said no one has been unduly promoted under his administration and that the certificates claimed to have been withdrawn by the university were actually issued in error, and that the matter could not be swept under the carpet as being advocated by the union.

The VC said his administration has been fair to all parties on the campus since his assumption of office and that if anyone had been harassed, it was him. He said they have not only maligned his character but has also maltreated other members of the union who had at one time or the other stood against its violent attitude.