Re: Oau Wake Up – By Dr Omolola Aina

I read the write up by one Dr Omolola Aina of National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) who says she is an Alumna of OAU on the recent appointment of Prof Bamire as the new Vice Chancellor of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife by the Governing Council of the University in line with the provisions for such appointment.

Given that she is not one of the Candidates or a staff of the University that may be affected by the appointment, I guess (s)he must be an Ife indigene.

I have gone through the write up and found it full of ignorance on appointment of Vice Chancellors to Federal Universities and Provosts to Tertiary Institutions (not of private Universities such as may obtain in Oduduwa University, Ipetumodu for instance)!

One major breakthrough of ASUU is the ability of a Governing Council to appoint a substantive VC following appropriate steps including advertisement for the Office for interested candidates to apply and in addition to this the Council itself sets up a Search Party for eminently qualified persons who they think would benefit the University.

Thus once the Council has concluded their interview and scoring, they rank and choose the highest scorer and no longer have to send three names to Abuja for ratification of a preferred Candidate. Such exercise had always returned mostly not the highest scorer.

Whoever the Council now ranked as highest scorer is chosen as the VC and the Result is sent to Abuja for Noting and Information of the President only!

The Chairperson of Council is the one that represents the Interest of the Visitor to the University and President of Nigeria! If he is seen as political, it is his/her nature of the appointment. He or she is not the only one that decides. The Committee System ensures ample democracy in decision taking.

The Character of the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council is not anyone’s business except for one major Clause: Whoever must be Pro-Chancellor must be a University Graduate and possibly have a Doctorate degree, as you cannot give what you don’t have! The Pro Chancellor presides over Convocations and if he or she does not have a higher degree, it is fraud to say such award is given by the Pro Chancellor!

ASUU-OAU under my Chairmanship (2008-12) enforced this Clause when one Chief Bola Morakinyo, a one-time Commissioner under Chief Bola Ige was appointed as OAU Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council! Members of the Union noted he only had a Diploma in Accounting from a London
Polytechnic or so!
We wrote to the then Visitor to the University, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, who immediately removed him and appointed Senator Dr Olu Alabi.

Even though incidences that followed almost made us wish we should have left the Diploma-holder but that would have been contrary to the Principles of ethics and Integrity that ASUU stands for!

The number of External Members of Council are usually less than the number of Internal Members so that the major decisions still reflect the inputs of Internal Members of the University Community.

I have gone this far to show that the writer, Dr Aina of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) and Alumna may or must have written the article in the same Sentiments of those who are clamouring that an Ife indigenous Professor must or should be a Vice-Chancellor so as to protect the interest of Ife people!

Is this a political clamouring?

Or is it that more of the land that was bequeathed the University by the benevolent, seasoned Administrator and the then Ooni of Ife and Governor of Western Region, Oba Adesoji Aderemi, be further plundered?

Under the immediate past Ooni, Oba Okunade Sijuwade, parts of the land were lost to some business Associates of the Monarch.

Evidences abound that the incumbent and dynamic Youthful Oba’s Estate Development and Mining Interests is premised on the tradition that the Land belongs to the king!

Does it?

Would it not be expected that the King would request for historical background on tenements and how the Estate of OAU is regarded by the Guinness Book of Records as the most beautiful Campus in Africa?

Is it still so, given the plundering that is going on?

Or has there been any reported deprivation of certain indigenous Lecturers or Support Staff because they are from Ile-Ife?

I have gone through the list of the 16 screened Professors: to me any of them is eminently qualified to be appointed; I am not familiar with the runner up possibly an International External candidate. Prof Kayode Ijadunola is highly cerebral and tested Administrator from College of Health Sciences; could he have lost points because he is from the same College as the outgoing VC? I am not insinuating this but it could go through the minds of individuals in Council. I see Prof Willie Siyanbola there, a very highly cerebral and seasoned Administrator that turned NACETEM into a Centre of Excellence. Is that not our Tony Okoh from South Africa, who is an Academic Researcher of International repute that was an OAU Microbiologist before he relocated to South Africa, or my Sister and professional colleague ProfMrs Kenny Taiwo, a dynamic goal-getter ! Who would say Prof Aderounmu another highly cerebral and Computer Guru from my Faculty is not qualified? Or is it of MAO that I will speak, a man who served ASUU well and would Interface easily with Students, etc.

But those who took the decisions know what we don’t know and except you are there with them, we cannot expect all the candidates to score the same marks!

And why would serving twice as DVC Academics of Prof Bamire pronounced as the Choice of both internal and external members of Council be ridiculed by this writer who is either working as a non-teaching staff or even if it is as a teaching staff, is lecturing in this open distance learning environment comparable with what goes on in a normal University, Ife in particular? (Apology if I appear hard but that’s the truth)

The Council in its wisdom and under conditions best known to it has chosen someone who is Primus inter Pares amongst the 16 Candidates to run the Affairs of our beloved University for the next Five years.

And that the town’s people have been brainwashed to bring Mosquerades and thugs into the serene University Environment to compound the trauma of the murdered MSc Student in Adedoyin’s Hilton Hotel is to say the least a violation of the intended Town-Gown cooperation that should exist for mutual benefits.

While I am congratulating the outgoing VC, Prod Tope Ogunbodede for a successful tenure and his escaping the assault on his person by miscreants from the same Ife Community for his defending the assets of the University he inherited from previous Administration, we pray for the success of Prof Bamire. May God also guide him to wisely take Decisions that will honour God and be in the interest of the University. He is, like Prof Ogunbodede, also an Alumnus and I am sure he will be fair to all.

I also Congratulate all the 16 Candidates for offering themselves to serve when it is becoming more insane to predict how things would be in a battered economy, reluctance of the government to respect and honour an agreement it signs with ASUU thus provoking an elongation of the strike period.

What interests me personally is why 16 Candidates? Has it anything to do with the cultural 16 chapters of the Ifa Divination or it’s 16-burner lamps that was the origin of the binary system in computing? Just wondering and to lighten this tension as I truly hope that sanity will prevail.

I am sure it is not any of the candidates that are promoting this attack on the University system!

Agents of tribalism has no place in an International Institution as Great Ife and should not be allowed to disrupt the University.

Rather, all hands must be on deck to ensure that the decay in our public Institutions are remedied.

And if any of these people warming up for trouble are really serious they should head for Abuja and get the Government to honour it’s agreements with ASUU so that the Academic programs will not be truncated.

The typical traders in Odo Ogbe Market and businesses know that OAU is the mainstay of the Economy of Ile-Ife and it’s environs.

Each time a closure lasts for just four weeks the town becomes more or less a Ghost town.

There is more work for whoever is in charge to get the University back to the Glory we met in the 1970s when we came in.

Go out and support ASUU’s Call for equipping of our Laboratories so that our Students will not be doing Alternative to Practicals, so that current textbooks will replace those that are older than me in Hezekiah Oluwasanmi library!

The Campus has no adequate water supply and have resulted to sinking wells all over, go to Abuja and talk to your Representatives to increase allocations to Education.

These are the things you don’t leave for whoever is VC alone to pursue!
OAU shall be Great again!
Nigeria shall be Great Again!

Shalom.

EngrProf Ìfé Adéwùmí