The Vice Chancellor of Lagos State University of Science and Technology (LASUSTECH), Olumuyiwa Omotola Odusanya, a Professor of Public Health and Community Medicine and former Provost of the Lagos State University College of Medicine speaks to Kunle Akinrinade on sundry issues including his mid-term achievements, the harmonious industrial atmosphere in the university and the recent dismissal of three academic staff members over sexual harassment of female students. Excerpts:
What was the thought that came to your mind immediately you were appointed as the VC of LASUSTECH?
The first question on my mind was, why me? I asked myself that question because there were many other capable hands. But like Shakespeare said, the world is a mere stage, men and women are just players and they have their entrances and exits.
There were opportunities that had passed me. When the government considers you for an appointment, it is a rare privilege because it was not something that I was expecting. So, it is a call to duty.
Fortunately, it was at a time we were having our induction into the Nigeria Academy of Medicine. So, I spoke with one of my good friends who was the immediate past VC of University of Medical Sciences in Ondo and he gave me a few ideas.
My appointment was an unusual assignment because the polytechnic was just transiting to a university, and that means I had to run two systems at the same time, which was a diarchy. So, I accepted the appointment.
I met people here and I met systems; they were not evil because the polytechnic had been existing for over 40 years and many of the staff members have been working here for over 30 years. But they were used to a culture.
What makes a university is the culture of academic excellence and research that is embedded into the teaching. There is a bit of community service, international ranking and pedigree, and that is what makes a university works. University is about the culture of thinking.
Was there a particular strategy you deployed to administer the new university?
Well, I wrote out a blueprint called IMPACT, and the goal was to make LASUSTECH highly competitive and much sought after world class university. IMPACT comes from six distinct work area, but they are all related. I stands for infrastructure, which is ambiance, the structures, comfort and aesthetics must define the environment as a university and not a glorified secondary school. This university is a huge construction site at the moment. Some of the projects started before I came on board and many others started when I became the VC.
M is for manpower, because the infrastructure alone would not make a good university. In polytechnic, the minimum is a masters degree and you can go on to become a Chief Lecturer without having to earn PhD while for the university, a PhD degree is mandatory for teaching and without it you cannot become a senior lecturer. We don’t have enough manpower to drive the over 270 universities, so it is important that we get it right in our university.
The P stands for productivity and prosperity. If we are productive, we can prosper. For example, we have been able to attract research grant from TETFUND and this not only means work for the beneficiaries but some additional benefits even if it is only water a beneficiary is able to take from the grant. So when there is research and productivity, it would lead to prosperity.
The A stands for academic excellence wherein we begin to peer-review ourselves to be able to compete very well among our peers.
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The C stands for catalysts to the Lagos State government agenda. We want the Lagos State to see us as their solution provider, and we have been talking to them in various ways. The agenda espoused by Governor Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State is THEMES+ and education and science are key things in the agenda.
The T stands for Town and Gown relationship in the context of entrepreneurship, and that is what is driving all that we are doing and that is the way we have tried to move the university in the last two years to go in the direction we want.
Gratefully, we are done with both the National Diploma (ND) and Higher National Diploma (HND) programmes including the part time programmes, and what we are looking at is the remnants in terms of students with carryovers, and by the end of the year we should have been able to dispense with that.
What were the challenges you encountered and how have you been able to resolve them?
Well, there wasn’t enough time to understudy the environment, because the job was well cut out even before the letter came and before I stepped into office. It was like a stranger in a new place. So, how do you decide your vision? But as we started, a few things were clear, and the greatest asset in the system are human beings and the theory of change came into place.
In the mind of the people, you only have to pull down a signboard (of a polytechnic) and raise a new one (university), but it was more than that. There was a culture of resistance and then there was issue of gross understaffing which for a long time was supplemented by adjunct and adhoc staff. There were issues of underfunding which the polytechnic also managed by the reason of its large intake of students, particularly in the external programmes, and the issue of small scale structure like laboratories, office staff and equipment that was non-functional. But what we needed to do is to galvanise the people in the new direction.
The best solution is not the one that you prescribed but one that you get by working with the people. So, we have given ourselves a lot of orientation through workshops and getting positive buy-ins and we can say that this is our own university; this is the university we want and this is how universities are run. So, it is not a question of the Vice Chancellor working alone or acting like a tax master. The VC is not alone. He is only first among equals and he is there to serve the people.
We are gradually building the university. Everybody may not join in the task, but everybody is seeing the benefits now. Some have been Chief Lecturer (in the defunct polytechnic) and they were reduced to Lecturer II. By nature, we are ordinarily title-conscious and except we did what we did, this university would have been dead. Now, our epithet is ”University of Excellence” and that is what we truly want to live up to and everyone right from gatemen and cleaners is an ambassador, and that is what we have been able to do.
What have been your achievements in the last two years?
I keep saying it that we have been blessed with the people I met here. I will not speak evil of them because they are our strength. Some re-orientation and I have consistently presented the state of the university report to the Governing Council. We have been able to establish credible leadership system. We have the Senate with various committees and College Board and we are running a system that is not personal or solely about the VC.
When we talk about a building, it is not only the iron and pillar but also the concrete that may look ordinary that would make it to stand. So these are the things that have helped us to do the things we have done.
In terms of staff welfare, in the last 32 months, we have not owed salaries. I do not think that there is any government agency that pays salary earlier than we do. In addition, the state government in the last three years has asked us to pay some portion of the 13th month salary and I have consistently paid even when I did not collect a kobo from government. Also, we are able to give financial support to people to deal with emerging health issues, and we have register them in the Ilera Eko health insurance scheme for prepaid medical care, and they don’t need to have money in their pocket to access treatment.
Also, we have in place a staff loan system whereby people can take loan for car, furniture and housing, and we have streamlined it to eliminate disorderliness. We have been able to get support for our staff from TETFUND for conference attendance which was stalled for about five years; about 28 of them last year and many more.
We have also been able to get money from government for our academic staff; some of them are outside the country studying, while others are in Nigeria pursuing their PhD. These were opportunities that we had lost but we have brought them back. Beyond that our university examination have gone on smoothly without any disruption of academic session for about six semesters now.
We are also able to approve results on a timely basis and I thank members of Senate and heads of departments because they have worked extraordinarily to achieve this. I praise them for their cooperation and support, because without them, there will be little that I would have been able to do.
Also, our students have been fantastic. Of recent, they won a hackathon contest at Yabatech and won a sum of N2 million grant for themselves. Other students have won laurels for our school and they are well behaved and dedicated students. We expect that by next year, July latest, our pioneer students will graduate, and by February 2027, we will have our maiden convocation.
Beyond that, we have had several workshops to train our staff for efficiency, and we are committing funds to send staff members for training and workshops, among others. We have promoted staff and we have about 28 associate professors at the moment and we are hoping that in another two years we will have full professors in this university.
We have collaboration with two universities in Kumasi, Ghana and one other won a fellowship to the prestigious Massacheauts Institute of Technology MIT, in the United States of America. Right now, one of us has qualified to present a proposal and has gone to Abuja to defend a multimillion proposal. If he wins, it will be a plus for our university.
We have also been able to initiate access to European funding portal and we have been engaging the Lagos State Government, the Ministry of Education and Transportation and how to look for solution for them in carrying out their services and we are succeeding in that. We have also been nurturing students through our career service centre on how to prepare their CV and appear for job interviews.
The icing on the cake is that in two years, we have been able to present our university to the National Universities Commission (NUC) for proper accreditation of courses. We have also grown from 37 programmes to 41. The result of our accreditation is just coming out now. Other professional bodies like Estate Surveyors and Evaluation Board, Insurance, CIBN, COREN, Architecture have come to give our programmes accreditation so that our students can become professionals on graduation.
We are also building a lot of infrastructure; one hostel being built by TETFUND, Student Union Building, 750 auditoriums being built by the state government and three other projects being built by the state government, among others.
We are indeed grateful to God and Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu for what the state government has done for our university, LASUSTECH.
What are the prospects you figure out?
The same prospects that I see is the same as what the people who started University of Ibadan in 1958 saw; the same prospects that the people who started the Obafemi Awolowo University in 1961 and Ahmadu Bello University in 1962 and University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 1960 saw. A university is like a small seed such that when you plant it becomes a giant. It’s a place that we are laying a foundation and when it is strong it is almost forever. Foundational work is usually difficult but it is what determines the DNA and culture of a place.
I am hopeful that LASUSTECH will become a university that we will be having inventors, entrepreneurs and topnotch researchers and people that will become renowned in their various fields. So the potential of LASUSTECH is huge. I see growth in numbers, in productivity, in research, creating new products and new services; a happy holistic and integrated university of international repute; that is the direction LASUSTECH is going.
What have you done to encourage industrial harmony in LASUSTECH?
Well, let me start with the students. They are young people and we have driven our admission more by merit. We have involved our departments in selection process. What I did the first time was to involve the departments by telling them this is your list, pick the first 30 per cent on merit, pick them on merit. So, it wasn’t one Head of Department (HOD) that sat down to admit students.
Secondly, being a young university and considering their young age, we have consistently set before them goals and it will take some time for them to be developed into full blown student union politics, because we are not yet at that point. Hence, we have been able to isolate them from the polytechnic students in some measures. At the moment is the Students Representative Council comprising Class Captains of Heads of Class (HOC) and there are guidelines for their activities.
The other thing is that change is difficult to manage. But the Lagos State Government has been magnanimous to us such that even when staff members were re-designated, their salary remained the same and that has helped. Also, we have tried to restore staff members to their positions either by way of restoration or re-designation or promotion. For example, all the Deputy Registrars were re-designated as Principal Assistant Registrars, and within one year, we restored them back as Deputy Registrars without writing promotion examinations.
No human system is perfect, but as you solve problems people will let go of their grievances. However, if you run a system that is transparent and credible, most people will flow with it. So all the things that we have done in terms of welfare has helped us to maintain academic and industrial harmony at LASUSTECH.
Recently, some lecturers and academic staff in your school were dismissed for sexual harassment of students. Can you share with us what led to their dismissal and how you have been handling the backlash?
In a university, nothing is personal. In fact, if you write me a letter and put my name first before my office (VC) I may not treat the letter because my personality is distinct from the office of the Vice Chancellor. Already, we have a sexual harassment policy not knowing that the day we would need it would come. Sexual harassment is a misconduct that is enshrined in the condition of service.
Now, one day, I got a phone call that female students were planning a protest over sexual harassment by some members of staff. So, I called all the Deans and Heads of Departments to a meeting to step up their game. Due process was followed in handling this matter. The rules are clear that until proven guilty, they remain allegations and the processes were complied with.
First, the victims wrote us letters complaining. So it wasn’t just hearsay. The next stage is to allow those accused to respond to the allegations, and the Registrar would then issue them a query detailing the allegations against them. There are procedures on how to deal with it, and based on their response, if it is something that is minor it could attract a warning or admonition. But if it is something grievous, it would be subjected to what is called Staff Investigative Panel. The Vice Chancellor will appoint three representatives into the panel and each of the four workers union in the university will have one representative each in the panel.
So, the university community is well represented in the panel and the only thing remaining is for those accused to convince their group (unions) in the panel that they are innocent or not guilty of the allegations. The role of the VC is to serve as the gatekeeper and he doesn’t interfere with the panel’s proceedings.
The next stage is for the Staff Disciplinary Council which the law of the university covered and in this case the accused staff members were given the opportunity to present their cases or defend themselves. In turn, the Staff Disciplinary Council will present the report of its findings to the Governing Council, and it is the Governing Council, not the Vice Chancellor, that will decide whether the accused staff members have a case to answer or not and to apply appropriate disciplinary actions as contained in the condition of service which every member of staff has.
Of the three staff members, some were said to be involved in chronic sexual harassment while the third person was new. At the end, the Governing Council applied the maximum punishment of dismissal on the three staff members.
It is not a thing of pride to us, but we have a name and students to protect. How will a mother or a father be afraid to send their children to the university in this kind of situation? So, the university had no option but to say that we will not tolerate this kind of behaviour.
Now, there have been all sorts of reactions and the backlash has been the insinuation that the affected staff members were being victimised. But the accusation or allegation is not a random thing. But you know we don’t have culture of easy admittance in Nigeria. However, our rules allow for appeal and the affected staff members have since appealed to the Governing Council and an Appeals Committee has been set up to look into the matter and whatever the committee would do has nothing to do with my office.
So, we are managing the backlash very well. No one is being victimised but the facts of the matter speak for themselves.