(By Gabriel Dike)
Worried by the high level of corruption in the Nigerian University System (NUS), the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has made an appeal to the federal government to investigate the nation’s universities.
SSANU Lagos State University (LASU) chairman Mr. Oseni Saheed, who dropped the bombshell, said that corruption in Nigerian universities is of a greater scale than in other sectors, recommending that university administrators found wanting be prosecuted.
Regarding the conduct of some vice chancellors, Saheed told the Daily Sun “SSANU is the only union in the NUS challenging the excesses of VCs. Some VCs sees themselves as demigods. Government has given VCs too much power.”
On the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB) crisis, Saheed asked the federal government to suspend without delay the pro chancellor, vice chancellor and the bursar who were arraigned in court by the EFCC for alleged corruption running into N800 million.
“The best thing government can do,” he said, “is to ask the VC, pro chancellor and bursar to step aside until the case at the Ogun State High Court, Abeokuta, is over. At the moment, the trio must step aside so that investigation will not be tempered with. The government is in the best position to ask the VC and others to step aside.”
On Friday, the EFCC arraigned FUNAAB governing council chairman, Senator Ogunlewe, Vice Chancellor Professor Olusola Oyewole, and the Bursar, Mr. Moses Illesanmi, on an 18-count charge of stealing, abuse of office and fraudulent conversion of university property. The indictment was made at the Ogun State High Court, Abeokuta, before Justice O.O. Majekodunmi, based on a petition by university workers