In the past 48 hours, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, and Mr Kunle Akogun, spokesperson for the University of Ilorin, have suffused the media with their “rebuttal” of allegations of pension fraud and other improprieties against them and their Administrations. The allegations were contained in a petition by the Academic Staff Union of Universities to the EFCC.
Since the substantive petition is squarely before the EFCC, there is no reason to continue to join issues with them in any elaborate fashion. Let them make their “rebuttal” available to the EFCC. However, certain distortions, untruths and half-truths contained in the so called “rebuttals” need to be debunked, so that discerning members of the public will not be misled.
The issue of illegal and unaccounted pension deductions in UNILORIN is an old one which has been swept under the carpet until now. Anyone who tried to raise a strong protest regarding it in UNILORIN, or regarding any other anomaly for that matter, was branded as a “saboteur” who want to sabotage the “peace and stability” and “unbroken academic calendar” of the university. That is how the community has been cowed for so long. What is now forcing the accused persons to respond and account for their misdeameanour is the combined effort of ASUU and the power of the progressive media. To that extent, the petition and its publication has already achieved a cardinal objective.
However, Unilorin Administration and Professor Oloyede in their rebuttal have largely resorted to abuses, blaming imaginary enemies and trying to whip up religious sentiments, rather than confronting the substantive issue. This is a typical Nigerian response, which is disappointing. One expects a more intellectual and dignified approach from operatives of the ivory tower.
Professor Oloyede’s resort to vulgar abuse is particularly disappointing for someone occupying numerous political and religious positions both governmental and non-governmental. Referring to academics of other universities as “fake and fraudulent hyenas” or as “dogs”, etc. is certainly not the kind of language expected from anyone claiming to be on a “high moral pedestal.” It is true that when people come under pressure, that is when their true personality and their true vulnerabilities emerge.
The fixation with the UNILORIN 49 in the so called “rebuttals” is also a needless diversion. Professor Oloyede and the University of Ilorin appear to be perpetually haunted by the saga of UNILORIN 49. Their phobia for the group is palpable. However, the petition before the EFCC is not by the 49. As the Chairman of ASUU in the branch, I am not a member of the 49, neither are the members of my executive who were elected into office last year. On the other hand, many of the UNILORIN 49 were actually Oloyede’s lecturers who are now retired; at least one of them who is a retired Professor of Islamic Studies taught him directly. And many were his comrades with whom he wined and dined and who had assisted him on his way to the top. Therefore, by collectively denigrating the group, Oloyede only deprecates and demeans himself.
Again Oloyede’s claim of publishing the accounts of the university every week is another hype of deceit. For example, in 2011 when Oloyede was VC, three hundred and two million naira (N302m) was taken from the University account as part of litigation cost or judgment debt, but like many other significant transactions, this huge chunk did not reflect in the cosmetic weekly financial account published in the Bulletin. This selective accounting shows just how “transparent” the system was.
Professor Oloyede also unwittingly condemns himself in his “rebuttal”, by his confession that, as VC, he employed staff unnecessarily into senior pensionable positions following “pressure” from some persons (in this case a “Pastor” and a “former Vice Chancellor”)! When ASUU opposed his appointment as JAMB Registrar on the basis of his record of improprieties, including nepotism and violation of due process, little did the Union know that he would soon supply some of the evidence himself. Maybe the appointee in question was not even qualified for the position! But the problem is not the pressure piled. To appoint a teaching staff when “the department could do without an additional lecturer” is tantamount to a felony, contributing to the economic adversity of this country. Who knows how many unneeded staff people like Oloyede saddle the government with all over the country and how many billions go down the drain in the process!
On the pension matter itself, the main issue is in two parts (for the benefit of those who are not aware). First is that from December 2011 Prof. Oloyede, as UNILORIN VC, suddenly doubled payment of pension by the employees, contrary to the Pension law, leading to undue economic hardship and encroachment on the individual worker’s economic rights, and possibly constituting an undue burden on the national Treasury. Secondly and more grievously, from May 2012 Prof. Oloyede as VC commenced another set of deductions parallel to the above, purporting this one to be “arrears of previous under deductions”. This latter set of deductions, which Oloyede’s successor Prof Ambali continued, never made it into the employees’ Pension savings account! This is the crux of the matter, which the so called “rebuttals” did not address.
Oloyede’s claim of “government directive” to increase the volume of pension is neither here nor there. The fact that other Universities either were not aware of such a “directive” or insisted on the dictates of the Pension law puts a question mark on Professor Oloyede’s claim, or on his motivation at the time. His narrative does not tally. If the government directive was in 2007 as he claims, and his employees have agreed with him by 2009, then why would the deduction not start until December 2011, four years after the “directive” and two years after the Unions have purportedly agreed? ASUU’s position is that pension contribution is a matter of law, which government directive cannot overturn.
However, let us move away from Prof Oloyede’s fanciful narrative and examine some core facts about how the workers were “carried along” on the issue of pension deductions.
In a circular dated 28th December, 2011, the UNILORIN Administration’s own “ASUU” when Oloyede was VC said: “The Union’s Exco viewed the last strange deduction from our salary with utmost concern …”. Furthermore, when they took the Administration to task in a meeting at which two Deputy Vice-Chancellors and the Bursar were present, the Bursar, according to circular, “apologised to members, through the Union, for not providing information on this important deduction …”
In another circular dated 24th May, 2012 titled “Burning Issues”, the same group decried “the abysmal removal of a huge portion from our May 2012 salary” and that “the ASUU Exco of the University of Ilorin was NEVER privy to the decision of Administration to commence the implementation of the deduction of the said “Pension Shortfall” (their emphasis).
In yet another circular dated 28th January 2013, the group stated that: “Your Exco was dismayed and more importantly embarrassed to experience the resurgence of Pension Underdeductions [sic] in our January salary … the Unions on Campus requested the Vice Chancellor [Ambali] not only to refund the deductions already done by the previous Administration [Oloyede] but further deductions should stop”. They also said in that release that “The JAC [Joint Unions Committee] was dissatisfied with Administration for re-introducing Pension Deductions in January 2013 salary against our earlier advice”
These circulars accusing Oloyede of impropriety were by Oloyede’s own “ASUU”! They were not by any imaginary enemies such as the UNILORIN 49 on whom the University Administration forever blames all its woes! The circulars were not even by the constitutional ASUU. As can be imagined, the constitutional ASUU, now led by my humble self, also put up a stiff and sustained opposition to the pension fraud where the others retreated.
The above circulars were dated from 2011. Thus, contrary to Oloyede’s smokescreen “rebuttal”, the issue is not just being raised “four years after his exit as VC” or invented somehow by ASUU members who are too envious of his huge “successes” in life. When people like Professor Oloyede who claim to occupy a “high moral pedestal” tell brazen lies about events, then it is time to define what “moral pedestal” really means.
The crux of the matter however is: what happened to the money deducted from the workers during the disputed period?!
According to Oloyede, if salaries were deducted and saved in employees’ accounts, I would not be the beneficiary.” He also referred to IPSS and deduction at source by government. Such statements can only impress those who are not familiar with the way the system works. Right now, as we speak, even with IPSS and later TSA, the University of Ilorin is holding on to more than N100million naira of staff’s Cooperative money, even though ostensibly “it has been deducted and saved in the employees’ accounts”. Every worker is familiar with this charade. When a VC deducts money and does not remit it, then he is the beneficiary, to do whatever he wishes with the money. Incidentally, the pension law prescribes punishment for employers who deduct money and not remit. If that aspect of the law had been truly operational, many Chief Executives would be in jail.
Professor Oloyede’s reference to IPPS (sic) is irrelevant and was calculated to mislead the unsuspecting public. The petition concerned a period before either IPPIS or (recently) TSA which centralised payments and deductions. IPPIS was resisted by ASUU and did not become operational in the University system until late 2015 at the earliest. In the period when Oloyede was VC and doubled the pension deductions from UNILORIN workers, such monies remained in the coffers of Universities (and other parastatals) for the VC to “play around” with for a while.
In December 2012, Prof. Ambali as VC refunded three months out of the stolen fund tagged “Pension under deductions” to the entire staff. The common sense here is that, if the refunded millions had been “saved in employees accounts” as Prof. Oloyede claims, then how come that huge chunk was refunded? Above all, where is the rest of the money?
Maybe the EFCC will now help to find the stolen millions when the Commission looks into the books of the University (not forgetting the onshore and possibly offshore accounts and properties of the major actors, amongst other manifestations of their “success”).
Dr. Afolayan, the Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, University of Ilorin branch, wrote this piece for and on behalf of ASUU, UNILORIN Branch.
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