The Council of the Federal University of Oye Ekiti (FUOYE) has shown clearly their bias over the allegations of sexual harassment against the Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor Abayomi Fasina. It has exercised injustice in its judgment against the victim of this oppression, Engineer Folasade Adebayo, a senior staff and Director of the Works Department in the University.
An innocent woman was intimidated and oppressed after her refusal to accept the unwarranted seductive advances made by the Vice Chancellor. According to the press report, the woman was issued with a series of queries to pay for her refusal. This amounts to abuse of power by the Vice Chancellor. Before long, Folasade Adebayo was stripped of her position as the Director of Works Department and transferred to the Ikole Campus. At another occasion, she was reprimanded and thrown out of a management meeting of the school by the Vice Chancellor for no reason in particular. These ways of serially maltreating a senior staff in the service of the University was unbecoming. It caused depression and deterioration in the health condition of the innocent woman and gave her sleepless nights.
This victimisation became the talk of the university as it was not hidden from other members of the community. Instead of the Vice Chancellor showing remorse, he spread falsehoods by unashamedly claiming that it was Mrs Folasade Adebayo that was seducing him. Nevertheless, no one believes such falsehood coming from the Vice Chancellor. This is the very reason the drum being beaten by him broke down with no meaningful sound.
The earlier covered-up story therefore became resoundingly uploaded into the public space. This became an open sore and generated debate of how not to run a befitting university. The attention of the University visitor in the person of the President, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, was drawn to this scandalous way of behaviour of a supposed leader of an academic environment. The President acted swiftly by calling on the Council of the University to wade into the matter. Unfortunately, the Council defended the Vice Chancellor without a due diligent investigation. This was in the name of saving the integrity of the institution, but smacks of injustice. This same language of “saving the integrity of the institution” was invoked in the case of the sexual harassment by Godswill Akpabio, the Senate President against Senator Natasha Apkoti. But rather than this wishing away the case, Senator Godswill Akpabio has been worse for it.
The Vice Chancellor was reported to have demanded to go on leave instead of being suspended and he proceeded on six months leave in mid-April. By this, he was dictating terms of procedure to those who were going to investigate him. Also, the case is criminal in nature and therefore not within the province of the school authorities to take decision. The case should have been passed to the police to carry out diligent investigation on the matter. The University could then have acted accordingly.
The Vice Chancellor in exhibiting his criminal mindedness colluded with the police. He caused Mrs Folasade Adebayo to be invited (or arrested) upon receiving a petition against her from a collaborating third party. In the course of interrogation, Mrs Folasade Adebayo revealed the circumstantial evidence of her being sexually harassed by the Vice Chancellor without lying that she was touched (or raped) by the Vice Chancellor as part of her allegations. Curiously, this aspect of the woman’s testimony became blown out of all proportion to form the main body of the police report. This served as an excuse in the defence of the Vice Chancellor. The police report that was released to the press stated that Folasade Adebayo defended the Vice Chancellor by saying that he did not touch her. The same “Jakara” report of the police, was unashamedly relied on by the the internal investigation panel and the Council of the University on reaching its recommendations and conclusion.
As a result, the Vice Chancellor has escaped justice and been totally absolved from the allegations made against him. It was even asserted by the Council that there was never a petition by the woman who made the allegation against the Vice Chancellor. Yet the Council went ahead in investigating the matter thereby wasting the time and resources of the University on the matter they later considered to be frivolous.
In the conclusions of the Council, the victim of sexual harassment, Mrs. Folasade Adebayo, and the Chair and Secretary of Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), FUOYE Branch are made the scapegoats of the matter. They were directed to write letters of apologies for bringing the name of the institution into a state of disrepute, embarrassment and ridicule.
The new Acting Vice Chancellor of the institution has been calling for reconciliation between the warring parties in order to put an end to the various crises that enveloped the institution. But the popular outcry and questions being raised by not a few people in the university community is that: can reconciliation be achieved without justice?
In a statement issued by the National Vice President of SSANU Western Zone, Dr Abdussobur Salaam, in early April, the union faulted the institution council’s resolution, saying the governing council was not being fair and just on the matter. “Consequently, and in view of the compromised decisions of the governing council on this issue, the Western Zone of SSANU rejects in totality, the various sanctions meted out to Engineer Folashade Adebayo for allegedly bringing the name of the institution into disrepute.”
To this end, the SSANU called on the Nigeria Labour Congress and other stakeholders in the protection of the rights of Nigerians to wade into the matter, which, according to it, “has the potential of becoming a cause of national industrial unrest in our university system.” “We have begun mobilisation of all 26 universities in the Western Zone of SSANU for a possible industrial action, and we shall not stop until our demands are met,” the statement added.
This way of parking an important issue of sexual harassment under the carpet and causing the victim to be turned into the accused leaves much to be deserved. Therefore, for meaningful resolution and reconciliation to be achieved, justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done. The successive crises of authoritarianism and corruption on the part of the management of the University are clear indications that the internal mechanisms for resolving the impending crises are not adequate.
There is a need to look beyond the University Council for an unbiased investigation on the matter of sexual harassment and other unresolved issues of corruption and maladministration against the former administrations. An high powered external investigation panel is required to be constituted by the Visitor of the University to look at all the issues confronting the institution and save it from the calamities that have bedevilled it since inception.
To read more details about this case, see: https://tinyurl.com/26zt27y3
