By Adesina Soyooye
The financial state of the University of Lagos, under the sacked Vice Chancellor, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, was rotten, and stank to high heavens. This was part of the many shocking revelations made by the Chairman of the Governing Council, and Pro-Chancellor of the University, Dr Wale Babalakin, SAN.
Ogundipe was sacked last week by the Council, which appointed an Acting Vice Chancellor, Prof Theophilus Soyombo. .
But Ogundipe has rejected his removal, insisting he remained the Vice Chancellor. He is supported by the University’s Senate, ASUU, Students, Association of Vice Chancellors, and the University’s Alumni.
In an unprecedented action, he led a protest on the campus against his removal. He has, also, gone to Court to stop his removal, insisting, like the Alumni did, that he was not given a fair hearing. But Babalakin laughs those off.
Appearing on ARISE Television on Saturday, Babalakin opened a pandora’s box, which revealed the depth of financial recklessness under Ogundipe. And worse. Babalakin said the sacked Vice Chancellor was engaged in forging marks, to the embarrassment of Council.
Describing Prof. Ogundipe as a serial offender, he shocked many when he disclosed: “Like State Governors, Ogundipe was allocating to himself Security Votes, which he never accounted for. He must be the only Vice Chancellor in Nigeria who allocated security votes to himself.”
He also accused the sacked VC of other financial recklessness.
For example, he said,
“Prof Ogundipe spent N49 million renovating his residence which a former Vice Chancellor who had just left in an excellent shape without even mentioning it, not to talk of getting approval.
“It was a committee of the University that discovered it. Prof. Ogundipe, in a very complicit manner, gave N41 million to the Burser to renovate his (Burser’s) premises. The Burser’s house can be built from scratch with N41 million. We struggled to have Prof Ogundipe’s management to give us a proper account.”
“Every single account that has been submitted by Prof. Ogundipe is fraught with fundamental errors. All the accounts were cooked.”
Babalakin gave an example of forgery on the part of Ogundipe.
His words: “Soon after the Council was inaugurated, we were trying to elect a director of works. Ogundipe as the Chairman of the Committee to appoint the director of works, chaired the occasion. When the interview was concluded, all the parties collated their results, and some guy from the Lagos State Polytechnic came first. Ogundipe now went to collate results. When he came back, that candidate came second because Ogundipe had altered the marks.”
The exercise had to be cancelled after it generated a heated debate.
He revealed that Ogundipe had a scandalous reason why he altered the results.
“Ogundipe altered the result to favour a member of staff who had been indicted twice for fraud and total incompetence. It’s in Ogundipe’s interest to surround himself with people who cannot stand up for the truth. Ogundipe should have been removed then because forgery in a university is totally unacceptable.
“But the Alumni, and all the bodies in the University, appealed for Ogundipe, and I told him that where I am coming from, there’s zero tolerance for this. You can’t do this. But the elders also came, and I told them that we were drawing a fundamental line, that we’ll not tolerate this kind of attitude again. From then till he was removed, there was nothing Ogundipe did properly.”
He tore apart Ogundipe’s claim that he was not given a fair hearing, submitting that Ogundipe did not only respond in writing, he also faced a Committee where he spent an hour defending himself. “His narrative is false.”
Babalakin continued: “Let me shock you. A budget that was presented to me as Pro-Chancellor of the University, the amount of internally-generated revenue, and the amount of recurrent expenditure were equal. So, every money that was generated was spent without improving the University. How do you reconcile these kinds of people? The alumni spoke to me on a few occasions. What are you telling me? I should compromise forgery? I should compromise stealing? I should camouflage breach of process? What if there’s a Visitation tomorrow?”
Babalakin, who is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, has a PhD in law, and is a son of a retired Supreme Court Judge, added for good measure : “I am a lawyer. I am not given to making loose statements. Whatever I say, I must be able to back it up. Prof. Ogundipe was accused of financial recklessness, and I can boldly say that you cannot find any action of Ogundipe that followed proper process.”
The Acting Vice Chancellor has since assumed duties.
