It is widely believed that progress and development are impossible without change. More importantly, these changes are direly needed when a system has been held back by a few mischievous fellows renowned for their illegalities.
For the uninitiated, members of the Lagos State University Community and the world at large, on Friday,8th of September, 2017 woke up to the news of the dismissal of fifteen lecturers from the Lagos State University. Noticeable among these lecturers is Dr Oyewunmi ; "ASUU chair" and Dr Suenu Adebowale ; "ASUU Vice Chair".
The established allegations against these two did not come up overnight. It is a snowball of illegalities, malpractices and grievous offences that draw back to years before now.
For Oyewunmi, his intolerable crime draws back to 2013 when he held students to ransome as a staff in the LASU external system. Oyewunmi was revered for his track records of mindblowing extortion of money from students, all under the guise of helping them to graduate.
Evil can not last forever, if at all it fortunately survives too long. Oyewunmi eventually bit more than he could chew when he told the students involved at the LASU external system that they should each contribute a sum of #50,000 if they want him to "process their results which has been swept away by rain".
This will go on to hunt him later, more shamefully as an ASUU - Chairman.
For Suenu Adebowale Adeyemi, it was a time bomb that was bound to explode. Adeyemi Suenu until his dismissal was the Acting Head of Department, History and International Studies as well as the Vice Chairman of ASUU - LASU. Suenu was established to have altered the results of several students as Head of Department.
Many of these students had already been withdrawn by the university senate. Suenu threw caution and morality to the dogs when he abused his privilege as a H.O.D by using his "window on LASU student results website" to carry out shocking alterations that illegally upgraded students that on normal grounds have no business in the university.
More shockingly, extra year students were turned overnight graduates by this same "ASUU - VICE CHAIR" when he singlehandedly upgraded and cleared the results of these straggling students. One would ask : IS THE DISMISSED ASUU VICE CHAIRMAN running a parallel university senate?
Unsurprisingly, many LASU students have taken to the social media to applaud the university authorities while urging them to prosecute other bad eggs in the system.
Their message shows frustration and relief. Their hardwork must start paying off. "Enough of illegalities, how will we read and one H.O.D because he is the vice chairman of ASUU upgrade other people's results because they paid him to do so?
They should throw out the remaining ones", wrote a student on the social media.
In all of these, ASUU is not culpable. It is just unfortunate for ASUU that serial opportunists, blackmailers, evil geniuses and psedo-comrades led this great union for just too long.
This explains why the now dismissed self glorified warlords tried(albeit in futility) to use the union as a tool to blackmail the university Vice Chancellor - Professor Olanrewaju Adigun Fagbohun towards dropping the heavy charges against them.
In different press statements, ASUU had thrown up several concocted and exaggerated claims against the vice chancellor. In search of anything to use against the VC, they brought up the issue of single term tenure for other principal officers which is obviously beyond the powers of a vice chancellor but Oyewunmi and his ASUU-LASU's desperation to drag the LASU VC to the mud only lightened up their(ASUU-LASU) infamy and ignonimy.
They attempted to wrestle down the VC alongside some other targetted fellows. But as nature would always have it, the truth will always defeat falsehood - even if it suffers blackmail for a while.
ASUU is a great union that has contributed immensely to the growth of education in Nigeria and its sacredness should no longer be raped by desperadoes who use it as a smokescreen to perpetrate various illegalities and evil.
On this note, true and principled comrades should rescue the union from the claws of evil and set it on course for progressive unionism.
Above all, this is a victory for LASU and those who have strived for its progress. Academic staff like Bola Ademeso(another dismissed Lecturer) should be occupied with groundbreaking research and not sexual harassments of female students, extortion of money from male students and ultimately : illegal alterations of student results.
Non-academic staff don't enjoy many of the privileges their academic counterpart enjoy. Yet, many of these PhD holders still get students to bed instead of to the zenith of their career.
To all members of the Lagos State University Alumni body (both old and young), we must realise that to have a university we desire and to return LASU to her glory time, it is not a management affairs alone.
We must join hands with Professor fagbohun led adminstration and other well meaning people to rejuvenate out alma mata and take it to the very top where it belongs.
To the university management led by Professor Fagbohun,let there continue to be fairness and justice in all the operations and dealings of the university.
The peace in the university is enjoyable and it is in the interest of all that it continues this way. The university authorities must remain focused and committed to due process, transparency, inclusion and all members of LASU community will have more reasons to be happy.
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