One of the good things that the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has done in the last year was to restore stability to the university academic calendar following the ruinous disruptions of the past years. Would the administration throw this away rather than ensure an impartial arbitration that is fair to all parties in the FUOYE sexual harassment tango?
By Adebayo Tijjani
The late afrobeat maestro, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti narrated the destruction of his Kalakuta Republic by the military junta of General Olusegun Obasanjo in a song he titled ‘army arrangement’. In the song, Fela told about how the panel set up to look into the act of wanton brigandage ‘conjured, invoked ‘ and generally lost their minds before arriving at the ludicrous conclusion that the Kalakuta arson was carried out by ‘unknown soldiers’.Well, history appears to be repeating itself and we could be confronting a ‘FUOYE arrangement’ at the rustic academic environment of the Federal University Oye Ekiti (FUOYE) – at least according to statements coming from the Senior Staff Association Of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) in relation to the various allegations of sexual harassment leveled against the Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof Abayomi Fasina by two senior female staffers of the institution and the decision of the university’s council on these allegations.
The scandals, which had been bubbling quietly on the university’s campus for some months, bursted into national consciousness with publication of a bombshell report by investigative media outlet, Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ). It revealed that the Vice Chancellor of the FUOYE, Prof Abayomi Fasina was allegedly sexually harassing a female senior official of the institution.For its report, FIJ said it reviewed correspondence between the alleged victim, Mrs (Engr) Folashade Adebayo and the university, including letters submitted to the school’s Governing Council led by Mr Victor Ndoma-Egba, and some sources who asked not to be quoted. The story made for a messy reading of the bad governance practices involving sex, patronage and influence peddling that is rocking the 15-year-old university. Despite very public interventions by various professional and civil society organisations, the university’s various leadership organs have proven incapable of resolving the matter in a way that preserves the integrity of the Institution and ensures justice for all parties involved.
Along the way, there had been many unsavoury twists and turns, including sanctions and suspensions of officials of the university deemed to be supporting of Mrs Adebayo, her own demotion, as well as the detention of her brother who is a senior journalist by the DSS. The only person in the sorry saga that has been left unscathed in all these, as it were, was Prof Fasina himself, who has been absolved of all charges by the council and the university senate. As pointed out by the SSANU, the council could not even be moved to suspend the VC for a period of time – as demanded by ethics and the institution’s own governing code – for the investigations to be conducted in a free and fair manner.
There is therefore an obvious need for an outside authority to step up to the place. Here is looking at you, Dr. Morufu Tunji Alausa, the Minister of Education.You have often spoken of the need to revolutionize Nigeria’s staid education sector and drag it (even forcefully if necessary) into compliance with modern needs. It is difficult to imagine how anyone could take the Ministry and its leadership seriously when a FUOYE pimple the size of a big mole is sitting right on the minister’s nose unattended to over all these months
And this is before another university staff, this time a senior staff of the university’s law department, released her own detailed petition – which was discarded as well by the governing council – alleging career-limiting actions by the VC against her due to what she said was her unwillingness to be a bed mate to the VC. In the eyes of an impartial observer of happenings at FUOYE, there appears to be a pattern here. But neither the university’s own leadership nor the governing council appeared able to draw the right conclusions, even when presented with the audio recording of a conversation between the VC and his primary accuser.
Interestingly, the Council reached an astounding decision that the act of recording conversations (as evidence to prove misconduct) constitutes cyberbullying rather than a necessary documentation of abuse. What, indeed, a curious web of deceit was woven! Although the usually energetic ASUU has been unusually silent on this matter, despite its huge implications for the University community, other unions have not been so negligent. For instance, the Senior Staff Association Of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has been scathing of the decision of the Governing Council and this probably informed its statement that the message from FUOYE’s leadership is: we stand to: protect the powerful at all costs, silence the vulnerable, and maintain the facade of propriety while perpetuating injustice.
SSANU, according to Dr Abdussobur Olayiwola Salaam, its National Vice President and Chairman Western Zone, is waiting for the federal government to wade into this matter, which it said has the potential of becoming a cause of national industrial unrest in our university system. “We have begun mobilisation of all twenty six (26) universities in the Western Zone of SSANU for a possible industrial action and we shall not stop until our demands are met,” the union warned darkly. It is nothing but a shame that this matter has to come to this. There is a Taoist saying that “it is not enough that wise words are spoken, they must be heard by understanding ears”.
One of the good things that the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has done in the last year was to restore stability to the university academic calendar following the ruinous disruptions of the past years. Would the administration throw this away rather than ensure an impartial arbitration that is fair to all parties in the FUOYE sexual harassment tango?
If, as it would appear, the leadership of FUOYE were unaware of the dictum that if you play around with a revolving door long enough, you’ll get smacked right in the face, shouldn’t the federal government – through the ministry of education, of the truism that one cannot solve a problem with the same thinking that created it. It is also obvious that the leadership of FUOYE – including its council members – have become part of the problem.
There is therefore an obvious need for an outside authority to step up to the place. Here is looking at you, Dr. Morufu Tunji Alausa, the Minister of Education.You have often spoken of the need to revolutionize Nigeria’s staid education sector and drag it (even forcefully if necessary) into compliance with modern needs. It is difficult to imagine how anyone could take the Ministry and its leadership seriously when a FUOYE pimple the size of a big mole is sitting right on the minister’s nose unattended to over all these months.
Ignoring the fact that they are seen as largely responsible for the crisis that has gripped the institution, members of the various leadership structures of FUOYE, appear to have planted their banner of deceit firmly onto a hill of hypocrisy. They have failed the students and staff of the school as well as those who appointed them into the positions. Something has to give, else FUOYE will be the marker of the Education minister’s true position on university education in Nigeria.
For SSANU and other unions involved in the pushback against the ‘FUOYE arrangement’, the official ‘spin’ about the university leadership’s chances of retaining its ‘authority’ in the aftermath of the Council’s decision is mimicking the behaviour of a child’s ‘spinning top.’ A ‘top’ initially is endowed with sufficient energy to spin proudly; its stability is not in doubt. Later there are wobbles which appear to correct themselves.
Finally, instability is obvious; the ‘top’ teeters and falls. It is the duty of the Tinubu presidency, with Dr Alausa in the lead, to stop this teetering top from shattering the industrial peace reigning in the university system. The time to act is now.
•Tijjani is programme manager at Youth for the Future Initiative.
•Opinions, positions or thoughts expressed here are personal and strictly of the writer/author and do not represent the views of The Daily Crucible.
