ASUU imposes heavy sanctions on LASU, declares VC enemy

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has imposed heavy sanctions on the Lagos State University, Ojo.

It has also declared its Vice Chancellor, Professor Olanrewaju Fagbohun an enemy of the union over alleged victimisation of members of the union who exposed alleged academic fraud in the institution.

The National Executive Council of ASUU in a resolution during its meeting of Mrach 7 at the Enugu State University of Technology, Enugu, declared that no Nigerian university should relate with lecturers from LASU.

The NEC resolution also barred LASU lecturers from sabbatical leave, visitations, external assessments, conferences, workshops and research collaborations.

Reports also have it that ASUU NEC took the decisions after considering the report of the ad-hoc committee on LASU.

The resolutions of the union was revealed in a bulletin signed by the ASUU LASU Secretary, Dr Tony Dasu, and the Assistant Secretary, Dr Adeola Oyekan.

Confirming the development, Oyekan, who spoke to the Punch in an interview, said the union headquarters took the decisions over several cases of victimisation allegedly perpetrated by the management, adding that those who exposed the alleged academic fraud, especially the union leaders, were sacked.

“The NEC meeting held at Enugu and one of the issues raised was the report of the ad hoc committee that visited LASU. The NEC took note that the management of the university under Fagbohun had been victimising the union since 2017.

“It started with the dismissal of our chairman, Dr Isaac Oyewunmi, and vice-chairman, Adebowale Adeyemi-Suenu, in December 2017. The union came to the conclusion that there was the need to deal with the situation.

“So, effectively, the VC was declared an enemy of the union and sanctions were imposed on the university, which means that no lecturer from LASU can go to any other university for sabbatical and conferences and no lecturer from other university can visit LASU without attracting sanctions from the union,” he said.

Oyekan, who was sacked by the university alongside Dasu, threw more light on what led to their predicaments.

He said: “The governing council had said the VC’s promotion as a professor would take effect from May 7, 2014. The university published that decision in a bulletin. Some of us felt that the promotion was illegal because he was not in the system at that time.

“But the issue is that when the registrar at that time was going to write a letter to him, he changed the effective date from May 7, 2014 to October 1, 2008.

“So, some of us who were in possession of the original bulletin and had the decision extract of the governing council saw that a fraud had been committed.

“In 2019, we wrote a letter to the governing council to investigate the registrar to find out from him where he got the authority to backdate a decision of 2014 to 2008.

“Instead of the governing council to investigate this fraud, the VC wrote a letter to me and Dr Dansu, who signed the petition on behalf of ASUU, to explain how we came about a copy of his promotion letter.

“That was how they sacked us from the university in September 2019; for being in possession of a letter of his promotion, which they called a confidential document.”

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