News

UNILAG Crisis: Babalakin Resigns As Pro-Chancellor

Dr. Wale Babalakin, Pro-Chancellor, University of Lagos, UNILAG has resigned from the position citing bias from the Federal Government’s Visitation Panel.

Babalakin-led Governing Council had sacked the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe from office over alleged corruption and others.

Ogundipe took the matter to court and the Federal Government had to wade in by setting up a Visitation Panel to look into the crisis rocking the institution.

The panel has submitted its report.

But Babalakin resigned his appointment as Pro-Chancellor, thanking President Muhammadu Buhari for giving him the opportunity to serve.

He said he led the Governing Council of the University to remove the Vice-Chancellor of the University from office for among other reasons as corruption and financial recklessness; forgery; complicity in the collapse of the University library and planned cover up; deliberate policy of wrongfully concealing information and so on.

In a letter of resignation to the president, Babalakin said it was noteworthy that all the Federal Government Representatives who were the independent members on the Governing Council voted for the removal of the Vice-Chancellor.

“After calm had been restored in the University, the Visitor acting within his powers, set up a Presidential Visitation Panel to review the actions taken by Governing Council.

“The Vice-Chancellor (who had been removed from office) and myself were told to recuse ourselves for the duration of the Visitation Panel.

“I find it difficult to understand how a non-executive Chairman of a Governing Council could be requested to recuse himself during the visitation,” he said.

According to him, the Vice-Chancellor could only recuse himself if he were still in office, saying that implicit in this position was that the Vice-Chancellor was acknowledged as still being in office despite his removal.

He added that the terms of reference of the Visitation Panel clearly indicated to any discerning person that the Visitation Panel was empanelled to exonerate the Vice-Chancellor and implicate the Pro-Chancellor.

“As stated earlier, the Vice-Chancellor was removed for various reasons and not just as a result of the findings contained in the Dagari Report. Items (b) and (c) were directed at the Pro-Chancellor and Governing Council.

“Unfortunately, those items deal with the interpretation of the laws of the land. The appropriate forum to determine the laws of the land is a court of law or a judicial tribunal. It cannot be determined by academics of a different discipline no matter how distinguished. These terms of reference are ultra-vires the Visitation Panel as constituted,” he said.