Hardly can anyone imagine that the intrigue and politicking amongst university dons surpasses those amongst politicians. Unfortunately at the University of Ibadan, such is the case as series of promotion racket, blackmail, falsification of panel reports, intimidation and academic fraud rock the nation’s premier university.
Since 2006, several mind-boggling fraudulent activities of some professors and high profile personnel of the institution is now so obvious the centre can no longer hold and it is now a time bomb waiting to explode.
For example, in 2006 in the Department of Educational Management, of the university, a Senior Lecturer (names withheld), did not know that he was looking for trouble when he applied for promotion to the rank of a Reader (Associate Professor). This is inspite of the fact that his then ‘Acting Head of Department’ (HOD, names witheld) hid the promotion circular from some non-favourite staff.
After nearly up to a year, precisely in October, 2007, when the promotion exercise was about to end, the non-favoured lecturers got wind of the development and complained and got the circular and guideline from the Establishments’ Office and were able to apply. Some of the applicants were successful, but because they had earlier been classified as lecturers who “have not been playing ball and so should remain stagnant”, but the university authority is yet to release the outcome of the screening up till the time of filing this report, three years after.
The problem was that one influential Professor (names withheld) who also works in the same Educational Management Department, who is said to be very close to both the Vice Chancellor and the Registrar, is fingered to be the man behind all this problem. This influential professor had boasted in 2003, that he would dismiss some of these “recalcitrant lecturers” from the university.
Apart from this issue, there was another fraudulent deal by same influential Professor, who was accused of using unofficial receipts to make illegal collections of N2,500.00 per postgraduate student and allegedly presented lies to the University Internal Audit that he was merely assisting the students to collect the money; whereas he actually appointed a postgraduate student to front for him in the collection of the fraudulent money.
Investigations and documents inspected by this reporter actually showed that he collected more than what he confessed to the university probe panel which investigated this allegation. The first two audit reports carried out in the school over the matter indicted him. But, in order to same “one of our own”, the university authority had to look for a third auditor to clear him, even though it was established that fraud was committed.
This influential professor did not stop at that. He allegedly recommended a student who was not the best graduating student for the best student award in the 2004 convocation ceremonies of the premier university in the country. The University ignored complaints from the deprived graduate. The convocation brochure says it all.
This influential professor, it was gathered, did not stop there, he had, according to our investigations, allegedly fabricated lies in cooked up petitions against some of his colleagues in the university. His victims include: Segun Ogunsaju, current Deputy Vice Chancellor, Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijebu-Ode. This was, according to sources done while the later was an HOD at University of Ilorin (UNIROLIN).
