The Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Lagos State University, LASU, chapter, Isaac Oyewunmi, has denied the corruption allegation levelled against him by the authorities of the school.
The Governing Council of the institution dismissed Mr. Oyewunmi alongside his deputy, Adebowale Adeyemi, for various alleged fraudulent activities.
According to the statement earlier released by the university authorities and published by PREMIUM TIMES, the Council at its meeting of September 7 dismissed 15 academic staff and two non-academic staff for sundry offences.
The dismissal notice was contained in a press statement signed by the acting head of the information, press and public relations unit of the university, Ademola Adekoya.
Notable among the dismissed staff is Mr. Oyewunmi, who is a lecturer in the department of Human Kinetics, Sports and Health Education and his deputy, Adebowale Adeyemi-Suenu, who was the acting head of History and International relations department before his dismissal.
Mr. Oyewunmi was accused of demanding N50,000 from 2003 modular year students of Political Science Education who were poised to process their results while Mr. Adeyemi-Suenu was accused of “unilaterally changing the status of students earlier asked to withdraw from the university from ‘withdraw’ to ‘good standing.”
Reacting to the incident, Mr Oyewunmi blamed his predicament on “political moves.”
He denied all allegations levelled against him.
“All the allegations are false. I am not guilty although right now I have been asked to step aside while the union (ASUU) deals with it. The secretary is in the best position to react,” he told PREMIUM TIMES.
“I don’t want to say much but we all know what is happening in our varsity, all they are saying is politically motivated. When the time is right, we would know, we have a robust structure in ASUU and the union has asked me not to talk on this issue so I won’t flay the union’s position,” Mr Oyewunmi said on the phone
Speaking also, the secretary of LASU-ASUU branch, Anthony Dansu, said the decision came as a shock.
“We are very shocked by the actions. It came to us all as a shock but the union is on top of the whole situation. At the appropriate time, the union will act,” he told PREMIUM TIMES.
PREMIUM TIMES gathered that the bribery allegation levelled against the ASUU Chairman dates back to January 2017 when a student claimed that he asked him and his colleagues to pay N50,000 for processing of their results.
On October 6, 2016, a petition signed by one Abiodun Jolaosho, accused Mr. Oyewunmi of using a surrogate to demand N50,000 each from sandwich students in order to come up with results of modules for 2009, 2010 and 2011. The petition claimed that Mr. Oyewunmi, who was then the course coordinator, claimed that the results were swept away by rain.
Copies of the petition were sent to the Office of the Lagos State Governor, Deputy Governor, Attorney General/ Commissioner for Justice, Speaker, Lagos State House of Assembly, Special Adviser on Education, as well as Chancellor and Pro Chancellor of the university.
Mr Oyewunmi reportedly faced a panel on January 9 to defend himself on the bribery allegations. The panel was led by the Dean Faculty of Law, Mike Ikhariale.
Attempts to get a reaction of the embattled deputy chairman of ASUU, Mr Adebowale, were unsuccessful at the time of writing this report.
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