The Lagos State University (LASU), has gone ahead with its plan to make a professor whose internal documents showed he falsified his age multiple time
The Lagos State University (LASU), has gone ahead with its plan to make a professor whose internal documents showed he falsified his age multiple times to manipulate the system and extend his years of service, the first emeritus professor at the university.
In October 2020, reports had it that the university was to appoint Peter Okebukola an emeritus professor while being fully employed by the university. Meanwhile, the norm in universities across the world is that meritorious honors such as that of an emeritus professorship are awarded to retired and outstanding professors.
Okebukola now retired from service, was nominated for the role in August 2020 by the department for Science and Technology Education because of “his outstanding contribution to the university in general and his extensive research and publication.”
His nomination was backed by a letter by the dean of the Faculty of Education dated September 1, 2020, which referenced Section K of the university’s rule, which states that “the candidate must have successfully supervised the Ph.D. Thesis of at least five candidates; he must have produced at least a student who had attained Professorial cadre.”
“He must enjoy the overwhelming support from his department; as an ambassador of the University, such candidate should consistently attract funds or grants from which the younger generations would benefit; a certain percentage of the funds which the Emeritus Professor attracted should be given as Honorarium to the Emeritus Professor; he must be a team player and be good at conflict resolution; he must be someone highly respected and with high dignity; scoring template should be developed to accommodate the above criteria; attendance at Senate meetings should not be made mandatory for the Emeritus Professor.”
Okebukola, whose emeritus-status was practically sealed by the immediate past vice-chancellor of the university, Olanrewaju Fagbohun, who was a protégé of Okebukola, before he left office at various times presented three different birth dates to the university during his more than 30-year career at the institution.
The original birth date he presented when he was first employed was February 17, 1949. He later changed that to February 17, 1948, and February 17, 1951, at different times.
The university management noticed the discrepancy in 2014 but turned a blind eye and was not appropriately punished as stipulated by the university rule. If LASU management had followed its own rule to the letter, Okebukola should have been dismissed immediately the age discrepancies were found.
On October 2, 2014, Olayinka Amuni, the then deputy registrar (who is now the substantive registrar of the university) raised the irregularities in Okebukola’s birth dates to the registrar of the university.
Amuni explained that the professor, who was employed in 1984, with the birth date of February 17, 1949, was due for mandatory retirement on February 17, 2014, the day he turned 65.
Besides Amuni who raised the concern, the university’s Academic Staff Establishment, the division of the university that oversees matters of staff recruitment, promotion, discipline, and welfare, also flagged the discrepancies in Mr. Okebukola’s birth dates after he applied for sabbatical leave in July 2014, and consequently refused to approve the leave.
After his request for a sabbatical was declined, Okebukola on December 5, 2015, wrote to the university stating he was prepared to resign.
But on January 18, 2016, less than a month after he expressed his desire to retire, he wrote another letter withdrawing his notice of retirement. He did this five months before the then Lagos governor Akinwunmi Ambode signed the amendment to the LASU law, which extended the retirement age from 65 to 70 in May 2016.
Upon the withdrawal of his notice of retirement, Fagbohun swiftly, quickly approved Okebukola’s February 2016 sabbatical to February 2017. But the directive was again countered by Mr. Amuni, who noted that the VC’s approval of Mr. Okebukola’s request to withdraw his notice of retirement was out of tune with the university’s law.
Amuni argued in the letter addressed to the registrar at the time that the subsisting policy of the university under which the sabbatical leave was approved was that “an academic staff who is sixty-five (65) years old shall compulsorily retire on age grounds.”
Fagbohun-led management of the university then released a statement claiming it relied on the date of birth forwarded to it by Okebukola’s former employer, Oyo State College of Education when he was employed by the university.
But official documents from the university showed the school management was aware of Okebukola’s multiple birth dates.
The documents also revealed that the university vice-chancellor, Fagbohun, was not only aware of calls by the university’s Academic Staff Establishment division for Okebukola to retire having exceeded his statutory retirement age but also actively prevented the division from ordering him to retire.
