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The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), University of Lagos (UNILAG) chapter, has said the Registrar, Mr. Oladejo Azeez, did no wrong in issuing memos as he only acted on instructions.
SSANU described the Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in the institution, Mr. Dele Ashiru, as “hypocritical, insensitive and lacking in logical reasoning.
SSANU was reacting to a statement credited to Ashiru, in which he castigated Azeez, on the memos.
In a statement issued on Monday night, the association cautioned Ashiru “against the propensity of youthful exuberance and overzealous tongue and pen-lashing of respectable positions and personalities in the process of protecting members of his union and expressing his views”.
SSANU said it was aware of the “face-off” between the management and the university’s council, and described it as the eventual culmination of the Pro-chancellor and Council Chairman, Dr. Wale Babalakin’s “dissatisfaction with management’s handling of the institution’s accounts, precisely, the institution’s income and expenditure, as well as the appropriateness of fiscal procedural matters.”
Explaining that the face-off bordered on the suspicion that the university’s Internally Generated Revenue, probably the highest in Nigeria, does not match up to 60 percent of the expected staff welfare and projects on ground, SSANU said: “This is the type of system the staff and unions (academic and non-academic) have imaginatively and accurately viewed as supporting a set of cabal; on and out of campus, at the expense of proper reward and remuneration of majority of the workers.
“The face-off has led to an open sore, which has degenerated to muscle-flexing between management and Council, with the registrar hanging between the devil and the deep blue sea as he is management’s chief administrator, as well as the Council’s secretary.
“In the absence of the Council, he has to be loyal to the university management. However, immediately Council is involved in an issue, his official loyalty automatically shifts to the Council, which is headed by the Chairman…”
