The Federal Government on Thursday suspended the embattled
Vice-Chancellor, Federal University of Technology, Prof. Adebiyi Daramola and
his counterpart at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Prof.
Olusola Oyewole.
A letter signed by the Acting Permanent Secretary, Federal
Ministry of Education, Dr. Hussaini Adamu, noted that the vice-chancellors were
suspended in connection with their ongoing trial at the behest of the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission.
They were instructed to handover to the most senior Deputy
Vice-Chancellors of their respective institutions.
While attempts to reach the Head, Information and Protocol
Unit of FUTA, Mr. Adegbenro Adebanjo, to confirm the suspension were
unsuccessful on Thursday, a statement by the Head, Directorate of Public Relations, FUNAAB, Mrs. Emi’ Alawode, neither affirmed nor denied the
suspension.
“Consultations are in progress with the university
administration on the true position of things, while a formal statement will be
issued in due course. Meanwhile, all normal academic and administrative
activities are ongoing unabated, in the university,’’ she said.
Daramola has a running battle with academic and non-academic
members of staff of the university over mismanagement of funds. The unions had
also urged the governing council of the university to remove Daramola from
office.
Daramola, who had been arraigned by the EFCC, is due for
retirement this month. In an earlier interview with our correspondent, he
denied the allegations levelled against him.
“Essentially, what is
responsible for this, between the management which I personify and the unions
is that, unions usually want some of the resources meant for the development of
the university to be given out to them as welfare packages under one guise or
the other. On this, I am referring to the non-teaching unions asking for
productivity allowance.
“Again, the unions try to resist developmental initiatives
in the university. They will rather you spend the money on their welfare after
collecting their salaries, to using it to develop infrastructure on the campus.
A case in point is the number of projects that we have and the staff unions
insisting that we give them 40 per cent of the Internally Generated Revenue as
welfare. If we do that, the business of the university such as the maintenance
of facilities, provision of power and even the construction of lecture theatres
and other things will be grounded,” he had said.
By Samuel Awoyinfa and Folashade Adebayo
