Immediate past Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Dr. Wale Babalakin SAN has said corruption is endemic at the institution.
Babalakin spoke on Wednesday on Arise News Channel in reaction to the indictment of the Vice Chancellor, Prof Oluwatoyi Ogundipe, by a visitation panel set up on March 29, 2021 by the Visitor to UNILAG, President Muhammed Buhari.
The seven-member panel headed by Gen. Martin-Luther Agwai (rtd) recently submitted a 241 page in which it reaffirmed cases of financial misconduct against Ogundipe stating that under him, the management of the university concealed the accounts and other critical information for three years from the governing council of the university.
It also said the VC breached contract tender processes that resulted in contract splitting to the tune of millions of Naira, in addition to stating that the process leading to the removal of the Ogundipe by the Council was in order.
Speaking on the television program, Babalakin who had served as Pro-Chancellor of University of Maiduguri before his appointment to head the UNILAG Council said he was vindicated by the panel’s report.
He said the management UNILAG Ogundipe under was so corrupt that his own personal donations were even looted.
Babalakin recalled that a day after he became the Pro-Chancellor, he went round the faculties and when he got to the Faculty of Law where he graduated from, he discovered that there were no current law reports.
He said he was so moved that he pledged half a million Naira per month for the purchase of the law reports and redeemed the pledge for 20 months until a professor told him the books were not bought.
“All the money I paid for books was diverted into a non-university accounts. They named it staff welfare account or something like that, instead of going to the university’s TSA account and they spent it at will. That was not the only donation. I went to Creative Arts where they made a presentation that will make even Steve Rhodes envious. And I said, what is your challenge here? No money. So I said, okay, every month I’ll give you N400, 000 for the minor things you can require,” he lamented.
Babalakin said “ The university wasn’t short of funds. It was simply being diverted,” adding however that corruption did not start under Prof. Ogundipe, “It is actually endemic..”
The former Chairman of Committee of Pro-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities said “I’m happy that the visitation panel recommended that an international accounting firm should come and look at the affairs of the university.
“I will not talk about that. I will say a judicial panel with a Judge knowledgeable in finance should look at all universities, especially University of Lagos and it will be discovered that the federal government is just pumping money into this universities without getting commensurate return.”
Babalakin would also want an independent body to do the White Paper on the General Agwai-led panel. To him, the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education cannot be trusted to do a fair and objective job.
According to him,“.. you have to take the universities out of full control of the ministry. Today at the end of the day, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education has enormous powers in the universities. All the things that happen in UNILAG from the beginning to the end, to even the new appointments were all wrong in law, they cannot survive any legal tests. And the permanent secretary presided over it. What is the business of the permanent secretary with the universities?”
He recalled that the first time the Council under him wanted to probe Ogundipe, he got a letter from the Permanent Secretary’s office not to touch these two areas.
Babalakin said “ I was in disbelief. I called his bluff. I was going to go ahead. The member representing the Ministry of Education told me that the Permanent Secretary said I shouldn’t talk about it. I said what do you mean? I’ve been Pro-Chancellor before. I know the rights of a Pro-Chancellor. I said, give it to me in writing. She brought it to me the next day that – don’t look at the collapse of the building and don’t look at the accounts of the university. Sonny Ucheonu signed a letter to that effect.”
