Withdrawal of PhD Certificates: My story – LASU VC

The blue-murder cry over the recent withdrawal of PhD certificates issued by the management of Lagos State University (LASU) headed by the VC, Prof. John Obafunwa, to 14 of the university staff, including Dr. Adekunle Idris, the university branch chair of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has continued to grow louder and louder as members of ASUU branches in other
universities across the nation  join the fray over what they see as witch-hunting and victimization of their members at LASU over the roles they played during the last tuition crisis involving the students, the university management and the state government of Babatunde Raji Fashola.
  Dr. Sola Nasir, ASUU Lagos Zonal Coordinator, fired the warning shots when he, in company of ASUU chairmen of University of Lagos, Olabisi Onabanjo University, University of Agriculture Abeokuta, Tai Solarin University of Education and the host ASUU-LASU, held a press briefing at the old LASU Sociology Department lecture hall, shortly after the notice of the withdrawal was issued, to call on Governor Babatunde Fashola to set up a visitation panel on LASU and to urge the state government to ask the VC to rescind his decision in order to give peace a chance.
ALLEGATIONS OF VICTIMISATION
Last week, it was the turn of Prof. Ike Odimegwu, Coordinator, (ASUU), Owerri Zone, comprising Anambra State University, Uli; Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo State University, Owerri, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike and Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, to issue a press release signed by the Coordinator and other chairpersons from the zone echoing the same words.
“We can rule that the purpose was to victimise some of our members,” Nasir had said. “What we are experiencing in LASU is a fallout of the last ASUU-LASU strike. ASUU Lagos zone and national are behind ASUU-LASU. We will fight him (VC) until he is out of the office,’’ he vowed.
“I fulfilled all the conditions before being issued the PhD certificate,” Idris added. “It is because of the last ASUU strike, it is a backlash. They are withdrawing the certificate, if I were working abroad what will happen? The issue of certificate withdrawal is an act of victimization. There are 14 persons involved, but I know I am the target. In the letter asking me to return the PhD certificate, no time frame was given to me unlike others. My PhD is in the Business Admin (Marketing) but they say the error is the marketing but my counsel has written the Governing Council and VC, Prof Obafunwa on the PhD certificate withdrawal.’’
“It is sad to note that consequent on the active role played by ASUU LASU, led by the branch chairperson, Dr. Idris Adekunle, in the school fees crisis, the university administration has adopted various forms of victimization and intimidation against members of our union, and in particular the ASUU-LASU chairperson,” the statement signed by the Owerri Zonal chapter of ASUU announced. “These oppressive practices have been cloaked under different guises of administrative policy.”
 EXPLANATION AND 
DE FENCE  But in a chat with education journalists, last week, Prof. Obafunwa vehemently denied the charge of victimisation and intimidation.
“We need to get something straight,” he said. “You know, whatever anybody does in life, he will be judged at some point. He will be held accountable. The VC cannot award a degree and he cannot withdraw a degree. Only the senate has that power. In fact, 93 senators were present and it is normal that if you start a session, everybody cannot be there when a particular issue comes up. So it is not the question of not knowing what was discussed. But how did it start? Somebody raised an issue in the previous senate meeting about irregularities in the award of PhD. An example was raised of someone that was awarded a PhD and would not receive it because it was different. How can someone expect a PhD in International Business and you gave her PhD in Business Administration?
“We asked the Dean of Management Sciences, to go and put together the report, let us check. I recall at that meeting that the Dean wanted to start talking, but we said, ‘No, let us have all the facts.’ In subsequent meeting, we were briefed. When the list came, it came with 19 names of people with PhDs. Senate deliberated and we divided them into three: those that had no problem, those with mild issues and those with serious issues. In the mild group, we had about seven, while in the serious group, we had five. The report that was presented showed that in 2004, LASU had offered PhDs in just three areas of its postgraduate programmes, in Business Admin, Management, and International Business.
“What does that mean? It means that those are the only areas you could get a degree in. What you don’t have, you can’t give. It was noted that some people were given PhD Business Admin Management. So when you were doing your citation, what was it on? Letters were written to them. To the best of my knowledge, all but three returned their PhD. We sat down and looked at it in details. If you apply for PhD Business Admin and your conversion says Business Admin but your PhD reads Marketing, to start with, Marketing was never approved by LASU Senate. On the issue of Mr. Idris, I won’t say much. I will just talk generally.
“At this point in time I know that a number of them have had their certificates corrected, and by the way the 19 people we are talking about are not all academics in LASU, and I can tell you that they complied except for three. I can tell you 19 names were brought to senate. To say that one person was targeted is not true. If you ask our students, they will tell you, they were the ones that fought for reduction in school fees. It was not an ASUU thing. So, don’t say that, ‘Oh, because we fought for reduction in school fees that is why they did this to us.’ It is our responsibility if we find out some irregularities in our records to set it straight.
ASUU AND I
“Before this issue came to the senate, it passed through some procedures, after which the senate deliberated on it and the Vice Chancellor signed. But if we discover that something had gone wrong along the line, we should be courageous enough to go back to it. This issue is a general one; we are not looking at it from one side alone. Whenever we have issues, we should be able to look at it and draw the line between what is affected and what ought to be discarded. I recall in my first encounter with ASUU-LASU, there was no problem from 2011 to 2012.  Are you saying that there was no ASUU in LASU then? I could pick up the phone and call the Chairman and things would work. Do we have problem with NASU (Non-Academic Staff of the Universities)? No! Do we have problem with SSANU (Senior Staff Academic of Nigerian Universities)? No! I want us to draw a line between ASUU-LASU Executives and ASUU-LASU. There is a difference. So when the minority decides to make so much noise that does not mean that the entire LASU is in agreement. I know that some ASUU-LASU members are now saying that enough is enough. You cannot continue to represent us and destroy us. But maybe within the next couple of weeks, we will know exactly what is happening.
“I have tried to avoid focusing on certain things, to leave the distractions so that we can have all the achievements we are seeing in LASU. Have I assisted some members in one way or the other? That is true. And when I say assist, I am not talking about conniving. No, that is not what I am talking about. Have I come across some people with personal issues that I try to assist? Definitely. Some of them were grateful, some of them showed ingratitude. That is not what I look for.
“Look at it, this way. We had ASUU-LASU prior to Mr. Idris. The chairman then was Dr. Oluwatoki. He would come to me at times with issues, and I would tell him, ‘this is what we can do and this is what we cannot do’ and he would understand. I might encounter a particular situation that I want to deal with and I would tell him and he would advise me and I would follow through. Before then, we had a regime of Dr Akinyemi. When I contested for a post in the governing council, ASUU supported my candidature. I was what you would describe as an ASUU candidate. I have not been against ASUU but we must learn to do things properly. Whatever we do, we must be able to accept correction.”