The management of the Lagos State University (LASU) has sacked three lecturers of the institution for allegedly using stolen documents to show alleged fraud.
The lecturers were accused of unauthorised removal, retention and dissemination or publication of official confidential documents.
At a meeting on Thursday, the Adebayo Ninalowo-led governing council of the university wielded the big stick.
The meeting, which commenced on Thursday morning, dragged till Thursday night.
It was reported that the university’s Joint Council and Senate Disciplinary Committee, headed by an external member of the council, Sunny Ajose, submitted its report to the governing council for a final verdict.
The committee’s recommendation formed part of the council’s deliberation at its 122nd meeting on Thursday.
The sacked lecturers include Anthony Dansu, Senior Lecturer, Department of Human Kinetics, Sports and Health Education; Adeolu Oyekan, Lecturer 1, Department of Philosophy, and Kemi Abodunrin-Shonibare, an associate professor, Department of African Languages, Literature and Communication Arts.
The trio are the Secretary, Assistant Secretary and Treasurer of the university’s chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), respectively.
The LASU lecturers were accused of violating the university’s law against unauthorised possession and use of official documents.
In 2018, ahead of the selection process for a new registrar at the university, the university’s chapter of ASUU petitioned the governing council, accusing the immediate past Registrar, Akinwunmi Lewis, of illegally backdating the professorial promotion of the incumbent vice-chancellor, Olanrewaju Fagbohun.
The petition, which was signed by Messrs Dansu and Oyekan, accused Mr Lewis of misinterpreting the decision of the council, which was taken on May 7, 2014, to promote the vice-chancellor by backdating the promotion to 2008.
The union had attached a document classified as ‘confidential’ and containing the purported governing council’s decision to the petition.
The management accused the leadership of ASUU of unauthorised use of the document which was believed to have been illegally taken from Mr Fagbohun’s file in the office of the Dean of the Faculty of Law, Fabunmi Adeleke.
Other punished officials
Two other lecturers, Kehinde Coker, Lecturer 1, Department of Religions, and Olusegun Henry, Lecturer 1, Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, faculty of clinical sciences at the LASU College of Medicine, were also tried over allegations of sales of marks and receipt of financial inducement, and absence from duty without permission.
Also, a principal assistant registrar at the university’s office of the Joint Universities Preliminary Examinations Board, Ekundayo Idowu, was probed for alleged sexual harassment and extortion of money.
There are also other junior non-academic officers including security guards facing allegations of negligence of duty and theft, among others.
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