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Two civil society groups have petitioned Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and his wife, Ibijoke, over the appointment of a new polytechnic librarian for Lagos State Polytechnic (LASPOTECH) by the governing council.
The groups, in separate petitions, sought their intervention to stop the move by the governing council to cancel the result of the polytechnic librarian’s interview conducted for applicants recently.
In its petition dated September 20, 2021, the Centre for Peace and Justice Advocate (CPJA) drew the attention of the governor to what it termed plans by the council to conduct another interview for applicants for the post of librarian, when the first exercise produced a clear winner.
Executive director of CPJA, Mr. Olaide Babalola, sought the intervention of Sanwo-Olu in the matter, alleging injustice being meted out to an applicant, Mrs. Kuburat Yusuf, who emerged overall best among other applicants in the recently concluded interview for the appointment of a chief librarian for LASPOTECH. The group stated that she was being schemed out in an unhealthy plot that may again return the institution to the bygone era of chaos and crises.
“We demand from Your Excellency an order restraining Prof. Rasheed Ojikutu from scuttling the process and for him to allow the completion of the final phase of a duly conducted, transparent process (midwifed by him as it were) by announcing the best candidate at the interview, Mrs. Yusuf, as the new Chief Librarian for LASPOTECH,” the CPJA said.
The centre said, in the interview conducted by the council on July 7, 2021, under Prof. Ojikutu, Mrs. Yusuf not only came tops with 84%, she also distinguished herself by being the only candidate who passed the competency test upon which the three other runners-up, Mr. Tajudeen Okusaga, 62%, Dr. Olusegun Adesanya, 76%, and Mr. Wakil Ogungbo, 67%, were disqualified and considered unfit and unsuitable for the job.
Babalola alleged that the council chairman mounted pressure for the competency test aspect of the interview to be set aside, a move seen by other council members as preparing a soft ground for another candidate.
He said, on August 8, 2021, at the presentation of the interview report to the Appointment & Promotion Committee (A&PC) of the council vested with the appointment of principal officers, he alleged that the council chairman brought in excuses that the best candidate (Mrs. Yusuf) did not possess a PhD, even though it was never part of the criteria in the first place.
According to the executive director, Ojikutu also claimed to have received a petition against the entire process, the evidence of which he failed to tender.
The CPJA said the council chairman offered three options for the CPJA to consider to break the seeming deadlock; uphold the result of the interview as it were; to set a fresh interview between Mrs. Yusuf and the first runner-up, and that the entire report be jettisoned.
Babalola disclosed that opinions were divided among members of the A&PC which necessitated putting the options to votes at the end of which majority of the committee members (8 out of 13 members) voted to uphold the original result of the interview.
In another letter to the First Lady of Lagos State, the Human Rights Monitoring Agenda (HURMA) through the Executive Director, Isiak Buna, appealed to her to come to the aid of Mrs. Yusuf whose rise to the top of her profession could inspire millions of girls but whom the council are determined to send into depression by demanding her the position after coming tops of the interview.
Buna said: ‘’We see this as the peak of injustice against a hapless but diligent and intelligent woman who has no godfather to make her case and whose right is about being trampled upon for the sake of candidate(s) deemed unfit and unsuitable by the entire wisdom of the selection committee.
