The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) of the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Ondo State, yesterday rejected the appointment of Prof. Adenike Temidayo Oladiji, as the eighth substantive vice-chancellor of the institution.

The Governing Council of FUTA had appointed Prof Olajide as its first female vice chancellor to succeed Professor Joseph Fuwape, whose term will end on May 23, 2022.

However, Oladiji was rejected in a statement by the Concerned Members of Senate signed by Prof. P. A. Aborisade and Prof. M. B. Oyun.

It alleged that the selection process of the first female vice chancellor was fraught with fraud and lack of transparency.

According to them, the appointment tramples on the law of the university Act No 11 of 1993) as amended (2003) concerning the processes of the selection of a vice-chancellor.

The statement reads: “Section 3 (b) states that ‘the Council shall select one candidate from among the three candidates submitted to it under subsection (3) of this section and forward his name to the President.”

It noted that the new head of the university emerged through election process rather than base the selection on merit by selecting the best, saying the resort to voting during the process is alien to the law guiding the selection of a vice-chancellor of the school.

They explained that the candidate who came first during the selection process, Prof. Shadrach Olufemi Akindele, with 73.9 percent was dropped while Oladiji who came second with 73.8 percent was selected as vice-chancellor through election.

“The election of a predetermined preferred candidate whose overall score in the process is lower than that of the candidate who came first, throws merit overboard. Unfortunately, that cannot and will not be acceptable to us, and shall not stand.

“We in FUTA stand for merit. 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 based on 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. 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 FUTA ASUU, however, said: “We reject in its totality the appointment of a candidate (Prof Adenike Oladiji) who came second in the process without any acceptable cogent reason of why the candidate who came first was dropped.

“The resort to voting to select a vice-chancellor is alien to the law (Statute) guiding the selection process. The process is called selection intentionally by the drafters of the law rather than election. The election is a subversion of our law for specific and pre-determined ends. We, ‘Concerned Members of FUTA Senate’, hereby call on the Governing Council to rescind its announcement of the candidate, go back and announce the appointment of the candidate who came first in the selection process. We will not accept anything less than this.” (THISDAY)

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