Why we withdrew the PhDs we awarded LASU-ASUU Chairman, 18 others – VC

It has been up to three years since you assumed the vice chancellorship of Lagos State University (LASU). How will you describe the journey so far?I came into the administration of LASU in November 2011. Like they say, administration is a continuum; you inherit both assets and liabilities. I don’t have a problem with that. […]

It has been up to three years since you assumed the vice chancellorship of Lagos State University (LASU). How will you describe the journey so far?
I came into the administration of LASU in November 2011. Like they say, administration is a continuum; you inherit both assets and liabilities. I don’t have a problem with that. But it is very important to know that I came into LASU at a time when we had problem of students graduating without their certificates for many years. We also had problem of inconsistencies in the school calendar, problem of infrastructural deficit; myriad of problems, both within the main and outside campuses, among others. And coming from the medical college where I had been provost for four years, we have gone beyond certain stages, which made it difficult for me to understand why the school had to still be facing such challenges.
One of the first major efforts we had to embark on was to restructure the registration process, allowing it to start from the department and faculty levels. Our conviction was that when you do this, the HODs will be able to know how many students they have. If you know the number of students you have, you will be able to prepare for them in examinations. After that, we worked on the duration of getting results prepared after examinations.  In the medical school where I was coming from, within 72 hours after examination, the result is ready. So, we didn’t understand how somebody would be at 400 level and begin to complain that he has not seen his or her result after exams. So, at the end oft he day, we were able to resolve the whole issue. With the Senate, we were able to work around it, taking into consideration the fact that the population at the main campus was much more than the medical college. The last exams we had, the result was released less than three weeks. Our target, of course, is to have results released two weeks after exams.

Many students, especially those who participated in your external programmes, complained of not getting their certificates on time. What exactly are you doing about this?
It is true that there were issues relating to backlog of certificates. I can tell you that I even had to sign certificates of some people who finished in 1994. I have lost track of the number of certificates I have had to sign but I can tell you that they are well over 30,000.
Prior to my coming, LASU had not been graduating students for five years. But when I came in, we had convocation in July 2012; we had another one in February 2013; another one in August 2014 and, by the grace of God, we shall be having another one in March 2015.
We also had issues with our external systems when we came in. LASU did not have a record of students in its external system. So when we came in, we insisted that if you are a LASU student, then come out and register. When we did this, we collated the names and synchronized them with our records and that was how we had our database. We also had loads of unmarked scripts and a backlog of other challenges. That actually prompted us to appoint a new director for the external programmes and all those scripts were cleared.  Today, if you claim you are a student of LASU, we will ask you to provide us with your record.

Sir, under your leadership, the PhD certificates of the chairman of the LASU chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and 18 others were withdrawn. It is being alleged that the exercise was a witch-hunt targeted at the union leader and was approved by the Senate without the required quorum. Why?
We need to get a few things straight. The VC cannot award a degree and cannot withdraw a degree. It is only the Senate that has that power. Also, it is not true that only few Senators took the decision.
Even though I don’t have the detail here, I can say categorically that there were 93 Senators at the sitting. It is normal that when you want to start a session, not everybody could be there but along the line, you find people coming in to meet you on it. It was in the agenda for the day. So it is not a question of coming to the sitting without knowing what was to be discussed.
How did it start? Somebody raised an issue in the Senate sitting about irregularity in the award of PhDs. He said the Senate should not take it because somebody applied for PhD in International Business and we want to give her PhD in Business Administration. Being an issue for the Post-Graduate School and Management Sciences, we then asked that a report should be put together to know what exactly had happened in the last five years as regard award of PhDs.
At the subsequent Senate meeting, they came to us with 19 names that were affected and the Senate categorized them into three:  Those who had no problem at all, those with mild issues and those with no serious issues. About seven of the 19 fell into the category of those who had no issue. They were those who applied for PhD in Business Administration, for instance, and they were given exactly what they applied for. In the mild group, we have about seven and in the severe group, we had about five. I also need to state here that in parts of the documents submitted by the Deans of School of Post-Graduate and Faculty of Social Management, we discovered that the management in 2004 had approved M. Phil/PhD in only three areas: business, management and international business. What that simply means is that you can only obtain M. Phil/PhD from LASU only in those three disciplines. What you don’t have, you don’t give.

So, which category does the ASUU chairman fall into?
Those who fell in the category of mild and severe, their certificates were withdrawn. But they were then asked to go and present their letters of admission. They were also asked to come and state what they applied for. And when they were doing their conversion from M. Phil to PhD, what was it they asked to be converted to? And most importantly, when they were writing their theses, what was it they wrote on?
Letters were written to them and, to the best of my knowledge, all but two were returned with their PhDs. When the Deans of School of Post-Graduate School and School of Management, as well as other stakeholders, started going through all that were submitted, they were able to detect what was wrong in each of the cases. Those in the mild group applied for PhD in Business Administration and were given PhD Business Administration (Management), we easily rectified those ones. But if you applied for PhD Business Admin and your conversion also states PhD Business Admin, but you were given PhD Marketing, it means something is wrong. To start with, LASU never approved the award of PhD Marketing, in the first instance. So, you cannot give what you don’t have.
As for the issue of Mr Adekunle Idris (the ASUU chairman), I am not going to say anything because of legal considerations, but I am going to talk on general terms. Some of these people affected have had their theses corrected. By the way, these 19 people we are talking about, not all of them are academics working in LASU. Some are working outside LASU and I can tell you that many people have complied, except for two or three people. At the initial stage, 19 names were affected, so to say one person is being targeted, is not true.  Let me also clear this, because I have been seeing it in the press, the fact is that the reduction in school fees was actually fought for by the students of LASU. Therefore, it would be wrong for anyone to say it is because he fought for the reduction of students’ school fees that is why he is being targeted that is not true.

But shouldn’t there be sanctions against those in the management who perhaps must have aided the aberration?
As I am speaking to you, a committee has already been set up to look into all that must have transpired and we want to unravel the developments that actually led the university to this. Some people on the inside must have connived by including certain documents and papers and all of that. And before any decision is taken by the Senate, it must have passed through some levels. And it is after the Senate sitting that the VC can append his signature. So, it is not that the VC will at his will approve or withdraw anyone’s certificate. I can assure you that if we are able to find people within who are culpable, this VC will be bold enough to act on them.