The governing council of the institution last week announced the appointment of Oladiji from the University of Ilorin as the eighth substantive VC of FUTA.
She is also the first female to be appointed as the head of the university.
The FUTA chapter of ASUU has however kicked against the appointment on the grounds that the new VC came second in the interview conducted for the candidates.
But the Joint Action Committee of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities and Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities have expressed delight and satisfaction over the development, saying the selection process was properly done. The Chairman of JAC, Felix Adunbi, declared that there is no law that says FUTA VC should be a product of the institution.
Adunbi said, “From available record, Prof Oladiji is the most qualified and came top in the selection process.”
Similarly, the FUTA chapter of the National Association of Academic Technologists in a statement issued by the chairman of the union, Dr Bello Olawale, congratulated the new VC, saying she was capable of handling the job.
He said, “We believe she will bring to bear, her wealth of experience for the development of this great university. As a union, we want to assure the new VC of our unalloyed support and cooperation throughout her tenure.”
But ASUU in a statement issued by its chairman, Prof Olayinka Adepetu, after its congress, said the selection process was faulty.
The statement read in part, “At the congress, we looked at the process; we are not talking about individuals. We found problems with the process at the very end of the procedure for the appointment of the VC when the council had to pick from the list of the three candidates submitted to it. Three nominees will be presented to the council in order of their positions. Under normal circumstances, the council should have picked the first because that is merit. There is no lobby about it.
“In case, the council will not select the first, it must give cogent reasons why the first must be jettisoned. If the second would also not be picked, there must be a set of reasons for settling for the third.”
“But in this case, the council in its own wisdom decided to leave the first, second and the third, and opted for voting between the first and the second, thereby disenfranchising the third. By the law, any of the three candidates presented is good enough for the position of VC.
“If the council wanted to go for voting, we would have wanted to see the votes of the three. But we have a vote for two and zero recorded for the third and that is where we believe something played out here. If you are not picking the best for the university, there must be cogent reasons and we will not accept it until the governing council does what is needed.”
The statement added that the “council can reverse itself and tell everybody why number one is not acceptable and why they have to settle for number two. We have rejected the appointment of the individual who came second in that interview that was presented to the council. The congress of ASUU in their resolution rejected that appointment. The FUTA chapter of ASUU will not recognise that individual as VC and will never relate to it until every level of litigation has been completed.”
Credit; PUNCH.
0 Comments