FUOYE SSANU and the need for caution

BY OLUSOLA SANNI

The Federal University, Oye-Ekiti has been in the news for some months for the wrong reason. The university, which was founded in 2011 by the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, has grown to become a bourgeoning centre of academic excellence in Nigeria’s tertiary education sector.

Curiously, the giant leap that the institution has recorded is not the trending news about the school.

What is rather in the news about the school is an alleged sex scandal mentioning the Vice-Chancellor Professor Abayomi Fasina and FUOYE’s deputy-director of works department, Engineer Folashade Adebayo.

From what is available in public records, the alleged scandal broke in a 2023 leaked audiotape. Members of the public who have listened to the tape will readily say that the conversation between the VC and Mrs Adebayo is nothing near an act of assault or harassment.

The question to ask, therefore, is what proper administrative measure should be taken in addressing a situation such as this?

First off, it is on record that the Nigeria Police had investigated this allegation and its findings did not establish an act of sexual assault or harassment against the complainant. In any case, the woman at the centre of the controversy herself had neither used the term sexual assault in her account to the police nor in any petition for that matter.

That being so, it is confounding why the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities (SSANU) would seek the head of Professor Fasina for a non-existent crime.

The matter must be made clear that the decision of the women’s committee of SSANU to address a press conference on Tuesday, March 4, asking for the suspension of the FUOYE VC, is an act that is utterly reckless, irresponsible and ridiculously portrays the FUOYE SSANU of instigating anarchy in a university environment.

Knowing full well that the university’s governing council has launched a nine-man investigative panel into the controversy and given the fact that the chairman of the university’s governing council, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba made a public declaration less than a month ago during FUOYE’s ninth convocation to ensure a fair trial for all involved in the scandal, it is pertinent to ask what ulterior motive SSANU is driving at in the context of this controversy.

SSANU is projecting itself as a biased party in the investigation into the controversy in FUOYE and it is even more troubling that the trade union body would defy the constituted authority of the university to make pre-judicial demands when the outcome of the nine-man investigative panel is yet to come out.

The following questions are pertinent to the circumstance: what inducement does SSANU seek to achieve from Professor Fasina’s suspension when he has not yet been found guilty?

Is SSANU using the FUOYE controversy to create lawlessness in the institution? Could there be the possibility of a political angle to the controversy in FUOYE? Why would SSANU continue to hammer the use of a phrase like “sexual harassment,” even when the complainant has never used the phrase in her petition to the police or in her claims before the investigative panel constituted by the school’s governing council? Why would SSANU make a statement that presupposes a verdict that only the investigative panel could have recommended?

Whatever answers there are to these questions, a conclusion that cannot be disputed is that SSANU has gone beyond the threshold of decorum in this matter and should be sanctioned for litigating a matter that is already in the purview of a constituted investigative panel.

If the SSANU chapter of FUOYE has an axe to grind with Professor Fasina on industrial disputes, they should be bold enough to own their ground.

Engaging in a proxy war in the name of an imaginary sex scandal is not a mark of honour – much belittling to the profile of popular advocacy that the global SSANU body is renowned for.

Up till this moment, no one has sighted a document where the woman in question put it on paper, accusing the Vice Chancellor of sexual harassment.

The point cannot be stressed enough that the inglorious attempt by the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) to employ blackmail as an instrument of a proxy war against Professor Abayomi Fasina is very unfortunate and smears the legacy of the trade union body in indignity.

Industrial disputes in an educational institution are not unknown. What is absurd is the tendency for a trade union body to want to discredit the integrity of a university by applying fictitious scandals as a weapon of engagement.

The Federal University, Oye-Ekiti has recorded many achievements both in physical development and academic laurels under the leadership of Professor Fasina.

Among all its peers that were created at the same time in 2011, FUOYE is the fastest growing, with the institution currently challenging older varsities in the same geopolitical zones in admission applications for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

A lot of these towering achievements were created since 2021 when Fasina assumed the position of vice-chancellor of the university.

To attempt to cancel these lofty legacies because of an imaginary sex scandal is not the best way to drive home an industrial dispute; worse still it is counterproductive to the interests of FUOYE.

Olasupo Sanni, a public affairs commentator wrote from Ibadan, Oyo state