A raft of allegations bordering on improper conducts, violent behaviour and mental instability has been levelled against a senior administrative staff of the University of Lagos, Olufunke Mercy Akinsode.
Akinsode, who presently heads the university’s legal unit, is accused of extreme high-handedness, arrogance and brashness towards her subordinates, thereby forcing some of the affected staff to seek transfer from the legal unit.
She was also said to have violently assaulted and consequently inflicted bodily injury on an official in the department, Babatunde Oseni, on 25 February 2011.
According to our source in the legal unit, Oseni, a lawyer, had reported late to work late on 24 February, claiming he earlier attended a court sitting in which the university was a party in a lawsuit. He was said to have returned to work after 2p.m and made an entry in the unit’s attendance register, as well as a remark stating his earlier engagement.
Akinsode found Oseni’s explanation inappropriate and directed the department’s secretary to instruct Oseni against making such entry.
Having realised that his comment was expunged from the attendance records, Oseni decided to re-write his comment on a sheet of paper, which he attached to the register. Akinsode was reportedly infuriated by Oseni’s action, but could only wait for him to report to work the next day.
While Oseni was trying to fill the attendance the next morning, a spat broke out between him and Akinsode, who tore the former’s clothes into shreds.
Oseni, thereafter, reported the matter and made a statement to the university’s security unit. Subsequently, the case received official attention of the university Senate and a panel headed by Professor Rahmon Bello, the current vice-chancellor, was set up to investigate and report its findings to the management.
Following, a six-man review panel headed by Professor F.A Falade was instituted by the university’s Governing Council, the highest decision-making organ, on the occurrence. Other members of the panel were: Professors Joy Okpuzor, A.V Atsenuwa, O.I Jegede, Dr. F. A Badru and Mrs. C.T Oloyede, who was secretary.
The fact-finding panel, which was mandated to make appropriate recommendations to the Senate and Council, sat seven times between its assignment, spoke to the affected officers, as well as concerned members of staff.
The Professor Falade-led panel established that there had been “a long running battle” between Akinsode and Oseni, “which had led to the intervention of various senior members of the university, including the late vice chancellor (Professor Babatunde Sofoluwe)” and others.
While Oseni, who was employed assistant registrar in June 2010, was called to bar in 1990, Akinsode, appointed as a senior assistant registrar in April 2010, had her’s in 1992. From its reports, the panel claimed Akinsode initially denied assaulting Oseni and “even after being shown photographs of Oseni in his torn clothes, she expressed doubt as to the veracity of his (Oseni) claims.”
The panel also pooh-poohed Akinsode’s claim that Oseni slapped her first “because of the several inconsistencies in her testimony.”
One of the discrepancies in Akinsode’s statements, as the panel pointed out, was that whereas she told the Professor Bello panel that she tore Oseni’s clothes because he slapped her, she denied having any body contact with him to the Professor Falade panel.
Rather she told the panel that she and Oseni struggled with the attendance register, but yet didn’t have a body contact. Akinsode, the panel said, alleged Oseni hit her on the chin at one point, but later changed her testimony, saying that he slapped her on the left ear.
The panel while admitting Akinsode’s hardwork stated that those who had worked with her testified before it that “she was temperamental and very difficult to work with.” Akinsode, who was said to have a fondness for denigrating her senior and junior colleagues, would never have anything to do with other members of the department, save for the office clerk. At the time, she was said to have avoided her secretary and other officers like a plague. According to the panel reports, under Akinsode’s watch, a “very hostile” working environment was created, while “her style of leadership was dictatorial.”
The panel also submitted that Akinsode “does not see anything good in others, and has little or no value for the contributions of others.
“Mrs. Akinsode is aggressive, combative and holds firmly to her opinions even when she is wrong,” the panel said. In its seven-point recommendations, the panel found Akinsode culpable of misconduct and demanded her sack.
According to Section 17 (1) of the University of Lagos Act, misconduct is described as “general misconduct to the prejudice of the good name of the university and/ or of discipline and the proper administration of the business of the university,” inter alia.
The panel also recommended regular medical check-ups, psychological and mental background screening for new, as well as existing staff members.
Aside Oseni, another victim of Akinsode’s abrasion and aggressive behaviour was her former driver, Henry Oyenusi. In a petition to the University’s branch secretary, Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities, NASU, in 2010, Oyenusi alleged that Akinsode violently assaulted him when a careless driver hit from the rear the official car in which he was driving Akinsode home.
Oyenusi said he alighted from the car to access the damage when the incident occurred, but in no time Akinsode suddenly sat behind the wheels and drove off. He said he was able to catch up with her due to a traffic snarl. At the point, Akinsode relinquished the steering to Oseni, but his explanation that the faulty driver had accepted to fix the car merely yielded him three slaps across the face.
The next day, Oyenusi said Akinsode instructed him to withdraw N50,000 from his personal account to repair the vehicle. Instead, Oyenusi made an effort to state his innocence again, which made Akinsode seized him by his shirts. “She started beating me again, but God saved me from her through the people around there,” Oyenusi stated in his petition.
This medium also found out that Akinsode has picked battles with some academic staff members. She was said to have used her position to frustrate cases between the management and staff members, even when a Federal Government directive was issued to the effect that pending lawsuits be settled out of courts.
In some instance, she was alleged to have misadvised the university to prosecute needless lawsuits for malicious and vindictive intents, while hundreds of millions are wasted through the process. A senior female professor, upon inquiry, told us that many cases are prosecuted in bad faiths by the university management against staff, while they serve as conduit for sleaze for some members of the Legal Advisory Board and the Legal Unit.
Recently, Akinsode, who is childless, was said to have beaten her adopted child severely and inflicted injuries on her. The child was rushed to the hospital, while a report was made on the matter to the University management.
Instructively, Akinsode’s malfeasances in the work place stretched to her former employment at Afe Babalola chambers, where she was said to have been dismissed for similar behaviour. Ironically, affected staff members have been denied justice by the institution’s management, which deliberately swept the matter under the carpet.
The earlier senior female professor said “the university management operates like a cult and would do anything to protect its own.” From our findings, Akinsode is being shielded by a top management power bloc, which has continued to apply the rule against the principle of fairness and equity.
The professor therefore cut the management some slack for promoting impunity, double-standard and corruption in a purely administrative matter. “It is a terrible situation that negates civil service rules. What legacy are they leaving for the junior staff members and their own children. There are many panels like that whose recommendations found way into the dustbins and this part of the degeneracy of the university system,” she said.
Akinsode was believed to have gone unpunished for tarnishing the university’s image during the time of a deceased vice chancellor because of an alleged tryst between them. The cuckolding legal officer continues to be shielded by other top management staff she got involved with after the said VC passed on. Will justice ever be done? This is the question Akinsode’s victims are asking the current VC Professor Rahmon Bello, who as head of Senate panel on the matter found her guilty of misconduct.
As the matter stands, the University is perceived to have adopted the Orwellian Animal Farm, where all animals are equal, but some equal than the other.