him on January 3, 2019 to start the New Year. He was accused of
“dereliction of duty and false accusation against some members of staff including the Vice Chancellor.”
But the academic insisted that his dismissal was unjust and should not
stand. Dr. Davies has sent a passionate appeal and exposé on the
university to Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State who is Visitor to the
institution, asking him to intervene for justice to prevail.
In his May 29, 2019 plea to the governor, the lecturer accused the university authorities of conspiring with the Academic Staff Union of the
University, ASUU, to sack him without a just cause. He confirmed he was a marked man for his running battles with the OOU ASUU leadership for longer than a decade on ideological grounds. Davies, an alumnus of the university and one of the foundation/first set of students, sees himself as a major stakeholder who must be concerned about the fortunes of the institution.
Davies’ current travail started with a surprise query from acting head, Department of History and Diplomatic Studies, HDS, Dr. Wale Salami,
on October 24, 2017 for allegedly not uploading HDS 306 examination result on the university portal within specified time.
Davies said the query should not have been issued because students were yet to return from their field works and the Departmental Examiners Board on October 16, 2017 shifted results’ submission deadline by a week because
of an ASUU strike. According to Davies, the acting HOD himself delayed the students’ field work by one week on grounds that he wanted to check
their performance on the field, which he never did.
Davies further affirmed the postponement was confirmed by the Examiners’ Board at its meeting of October 30, 2017.
The lecturer in his plea to the governor justified his claim on victimisation with points that some lecturers in the department who uploaded their results three weeks after he was queried were never questioned.
“The action of the Acting Head was actually a disregard of the decision of the Departmental Board of Examiners meeting of October 16, 2017,” Davies wrote.
Though Davies claimed he uploaded the result same day he got the query and one week before the university portal was shut, the acting HOD, Dr. Salami, still wrote to the Vice Chancellor on October 26, 2017, complaining that Davies was negligent. Consequently, another query was
issued to Davies from the VC’s office seeking explanation for the alleged late submission of the HDS 306 examination result.
Beyond this, the Vice Chancellor’s office raised another issue in its query.
Davies was asked to explain why he allegedly accused the Vice Chancellor of “fraudulently foisting” Dr Salami as the acting Head of Department, an act construed as disrespectful to the office of the Vice Chancellor.
Davies in a personal letter to the Vice Chancellor through the chairman
of the university Governing Council, said: “I personally hold the office of the Vice Chancellor in high esteem and did not and could not have used the phrase in reference to the exalted position of the Vice Chancellor whose office must be respected and not disparaged by any member of staff of the university,” explaining that the issues were unrelated, he further said: “This allegation has caused me great pain as it falsely
portrays me as being disrespectful of the office of the Vice Chancellor.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Whatever pain or discomfort
this false claim must have caused the office of the Vice Chancellor, till this clarification, is highly regretted.”
In his clarifications, Davies said there was a past exchange between him
and Salami, when the acting HOD asked him to hand over a
postgraduate programme that he had barely coordinated for a year for
unjustifiable reasons. Besides, Davies insisted he used the phrase against
some OOU ASUU henchmen who in their overbearing actions resisted
his headship of the department in favour of Salami.
Davies advancing his explanations to the Visitor, said the OOU ASUU
and his HOD had made past attempts to get him fired from the
university on several false charges. He said he once reported Dr. Deji
Agboola, OOU ASUU head to the national president of ASUU, Prof
Biodun Ogunyemi, who intervened in 2016. He wrote: “On the issue of
false accusation against some members of staff including the Vice
Chancellor, I did NOT make any false accusation against any member of
staff let alone the Vice Chancellor. The letter of invitation I received from
the Staff Professional Ethics and Discipline Committee, SPEDC, asked
me to come and speak to the issue of dereliction of duty (see Annexure
2). How SPEDC came about the allegation of " false accusation against
some members of staff including the Vice Chancellor" was fabricated by
SPEDC.
“It should be noted that this is not the first time that SPEDC would
recommend my appointment for termination on false grounds. On 12
March, 2018, SPEDC had recommended my appointment for
termination to the Appointments and Promotions Committee, A&PC, on
false grounds which led the A&PC to set up another committee headed
by Professor Kayode Oyesiku to investigate the matter. The committee
exonerated me of all the allegations levelled by SPEDC and found other
people culpable of those allegations. Surprisingly, nothing has happened
to those people despite the fact that I would have been sacked for the
offences committed by these people,” Davies claimed in his letter.
He said further: “On that particular occasion, SPEDC had misinformed
the A&PC that I was the one investigated by it. I need to state
categorically that I was NEVER investigated for the issues raised by
SPEDC in its recommendations to A&PC on 12 March 2018. It was one
Mr. Soji Oyeranmi that was sent to SPEDC by Professor Saburi Adesanya
for investigation when he lost a whole parcel of examination scripts and
NOT me. Mr. Soji Oyeranmi had earlier been sacked in 2012 for
misconduct but re-engaged in 2014 with a letter of warning asking him
to be more alive to his responsibility, otherwise, he would be sacked and
not re-absorbed again. Ironically, in spite of his loss of examination
scripts, he is still working in the university while people like me who
have NOT breached the university regulation in whatever form are being
asked to leave the university by the union leaders who control all the
structures in Olabisi Onabanjo University.” Davies said this matter of
swapping his name with Oyeranmi's by SPEDC was reported to ICPC in
August 2018 for investigation.
Besides the union leaders and Salami, Davies also made enemy for
himself when he blew the whistle that his dean in the Faculty of Arts and
a Governing Council member, Professor Dipo Olubomehin, who sat on
the A&PC that sacked him. Davies reported Olubomehin together with
Salami lacked the moral standard required of their positions in the
university. He alleged that both of them had plagiarised essays of former
students to get promotions. In his words: “Both Prof. Dipo Olubomehin
and Dr. Wale Salami have used students’ long essays for promotion at
different times. This issue was a matter for investigation by a committee
headed by Professor Kayode Oyesiku, (former Vice Chancellor, Tai
Solarin University of Education, Ijebu Ode) whose committee found the
two of them culpable.”
To compound the matter, Davies said though the university set up the
committee to verify his allegations against the duo, “the report of that
committee had been submitted to the Vice Chancellor, Professor Ganiyu
Olatunde since 23 May, 2018. He has however, refused to do anything to
that report over a year after its submission. If anything, these people
have continued to benefit unjustly from promotions and salaries up to
professorial cadre which they do not deserve.” He said the civic duty of
notifying the National Universities Commission, NUC, on the matter of
plagiarism by Olubomehin and Salami had been done.
Efforts to speak with Oyesiku on the matter failed, but the former VC in
his response to an SMS replied: “There is reporting line of official
documents that are confidential, which is through the Vice Chancellor.
The report is with him. Kindly get across to the VC. My best and esteem
regards.”
Aside from fighting plagiarism, Davies also told the Visitor that he was in
clash with one Tunde Odunlami also of the HDS who at different times
fraudulently collected school and field trip fees running into millions of
naira from students, issuing them his personal receipts. “This was also
covered by the report submitted to the vice chancellor, Prof Ganiyu
Olatunde, which he did nothing about.”
Further, Davies said the Appointments and Promotions Committee,
A&PC, had in 2015 advised Odunlami and one Mrs. Akin-Alade to
withdraw their services from “the University for NOT having a PhD after
spending more than thirty years (30) in the services of the university.”
Consequently, Akin-Alade honourably retired from the university, while
Odunlami “used the Dr. Deji Agboola's led ASUU to remain in the
university till date (34 years after his appointment) without a PhD.”
While another academic, Muyiwa Balogun of same HDS was sacked May
2018 for spending more than 10 years in the university without a PhD,
Tunde Odunlami just got a PhD from the Lagos State University, LASU,
Ojo in August, 2019 after three decades at OOU. Davies said he inflamed
the anger of the OOU ASUU more when he sponsored Dr. Muyiwa
Adeyemi to succeed Deji Agboola as chairman, rebuffing all entreaties
from emissaries and Deji Agboola himself whose candidate, Dr. Joel
Okewale eventually won. It is of note that Agoola served on both the
SPEDC and the Council that nailed Davies.
A finance staff of OOU, corroborating Davies’ stand unveiled some
unwholesome actions of the former vice chancellor of the university,
Professor Saburi Adesanya with alleged connivance of Agoola;s ASUU.
Adesanya’s daughter, who was never a staff of the university was
unethically awarded a Commonwealth scholarship worth N25million by
her father. Agboola was said to have offered the lady an appointment in
his anatomy department and placed her on salary “when she never
worked in OOU for one day. She was abroad all through.” The lady in
question unjustifiably enjoyed not only the multi-million naira
scholarship but also had her name smuggled into university staff pay roll
with Agoola’s cooperation.
For his efforts, Agboola got accelerated promotions under Adesanya, “he
was also appointed as the DVC in 2018.” Professor Adesanya's daughter
later resigned her ghost staff status and the matter never got to the Staff
Professional Ethics and Discipline Committee, SPEDC. Reacting to this,
Davies lamented that “the real question is how can the university take
somebody who was never a member of staff of the university to SPEDC
without also bringing to book those who masterminded the fraud?”
Another plague of OOU the aggrieved lecturer reported to the Visitor is
the issue of some dismissed academics considered “unfit by the Lagos
State University, Ojo who were engaged by the university in 2017 (see
the Punch of September 9, 2017: “LASU sacks Ag. HOD, Senior Lecturer,
others over misconduct,” but “at the instance of ASUU/OOU led by Dr.
Deji Agboola. No sooner were they dismissed from LASU than they were
re-engaged by Professor Ganiyu Olatunji Olatunde into OOU.”
In the same vein, Davies recalled some lecturers in the OOU being
victims of injustice, victimisation and gang-up by the union in
collaboration with the vice chancellor, who was a former chairman of
ASUU at Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta. Davies claimed the
VC “acceded to everything the union wants done in OOU.” Academics
listed to have been unjustly sacked include Professor N. A. Amusa, Dr. O.
Ezeliora, Mr. Segun Ojo and Mr. Muyiwa Balogun.
Davies not only wants Governor Abiodun to investigate affairs at the
university but also to use his good office to declare the termination of his
appointment “unjust and of no effect because I was not guilty of any
misconduct as everything was fabricated by the union leaders who
control all the structures in OOU… They actually want to destroy Olabisi
Onabanjo University by sending dedicated scholars, who do not follow
their politicking and bickering, away from the university.”
Aside from his reinstatement plea to the Governor, Davies wants the
Visitor to direct that his papers be assessed for promotion and backlog of
his entitlements paid because he had been denied promotion since 2014
“on the directive of ASUU.”
Former lecturers of the OOU who spoke anonymously on the matter,
because they have pending court actions, confirmed Davies’ claims. They
complained that both the current and past executive members of the
OOU ASUU, have taken over the running of the university, making the
institution lose good lecturers in various departments.
However, unlike other lecturers caught unawares by their sack, Davies
got a wind of his impending dismissal. To deter it, he informed the OOU
Alumni Association, asking for advice and intervention on the matter to
avert injustice.
Afolabi Sorunke, the immediate past president of the alumni association,
during whose tenure the matter unfolded, confirmed this. Sorunke said
the association stepped into the matter with the university authority and
the Council. “As an association, we have the statutory responsibility to
protect the interest of our members. So, when Lanre told us that he was
going to be sacked based some injustice, we took three steps.
“First, we had a meeting with the VC with some members of the
association. The VC said he didn’t know Davies from Adam and that the
issue was a departmental matter of no interest to him. So, we asked him
to use his influence in the Council to try his best to resolve the matter.
He assured us that he would and advised us to reach out to other
members of the university governing council.”
Based on that advice, members of the alumni association reached out to
some members of the university’s governing council, asking them to look
into the matter dispassionately. The council members also assured the
association there would be no miscarriage of justice. Despite the
assurances the council did not prevent the alleged victimisation. Sorunke
said that development prompted a third step, which was to write a
formal letter to the VC to take a second look at the matter. “We said it
would not be nice for the image of the university if the matter should
blow out to the public,”
Another alumnus and former Lagos chair of the association, Soji
Odedina, expressed disappointment about the “level of injustice” being
perpetrated at the university. “We have tried as an association and
individuals to intervene, but the university authorities have decided not
to listen to our advice. I have committed more than 14 years of energy
and resources to help the university grow to international standards. But
since the university has decided not to cooperate, I have decided to take
the back seat on all the matters about the university for now,” Odedina
said.
Both the VC and the chairman of the university governing council, Mrs
Mosun Belo-Olusoga, declined comments. Mrs, Belo-Olusoga was said to
be outside the country for medical reason. Professor Agboola on his part
sent a terse WhatsApp response: “Please direct your enquiries to the
authority of the University. Thank you”, while Dr. Salami said on the
telephone: “If you want to ask any question about Dr Davies, go to the
