Presidential panel report details fraud allegations against UNILAG VC, Ogundipe
The report backed the actions taken against Mr Ogundipe by the Wale Babalakin-led governing council, but the government has so far ignored the recommendation of a committee it constituted.


On August 12, 2020, the media feasted on stories of Oluwatoyin Ogundipe’s sudden removal as vice-chancellor of the University of Lagos (UNILAG). Before then, the university’s governing council headed by Wale Babalakin, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), had probed Mr Ogundipe on several corruption allegations, including the misappropriation of funds and recruitment irregularity.

Between 2018 and 2019, the UNILAG governing council constituted a panel led by Saminu Dagari, a representative of the federal government, and Eddy Omolehinwa, a professor of accounting, to look into the institution’s finances, expenditures and budgets. It was based on the damning report of the panel that the governing council removed Mr Ogundipe.

Displeased with the vice-chancellor’s removal, President Muhammadu Buhari constituted a panel led by Tukur Sa’ad, a former Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State, to look into the crisis.

But in a letter addressed to the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, in October 2020, Mr Sa’ad noted that his panel was restricted to checking if Mr Ogundipe’s removal followed due process.

Minister-of-Education-Adamu-Adamu
Minister-of-Education-Adamu-Adamu
“The recommendation that the VC should be reinstated was limited to the procedure of his termination,” Mr Sa’ad said in the letter. “It did not mean he should be absolved of all wrongdoing. If among the faults enumerated in the report the government believes he should be sacked, that does not contradict our recommendations.”

President Buhari would later reinstate Mr Ogundipe without probing the allegations against him. Mr Babalakin, who led the governing council that removed Mr Ogundipe, resigned in protest.

But a few months after submitting the report of the panel he chaired, Mr Sa’ad faulted the reinstatement of Mr Ogundipe by Mr Buhari. He said he reluctantly endorsed the report of the panel because members of the committee appeared to be biased towards Mr Ogundipe against Mr Babalakin.

The new presidential panel report
On March 29, 2021, the federal government constituted another presidential visitation panel, led by Martins Agwai, a former Chief of Army Staff, to scrutinise the management of UNILAG between 2015 and 2019, including the controversial dismissal of Mr Ogundipe as Vice-Chancellor.

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After several months of painstaking investigation, the Agwai-led panel submitted its report to the Ministry of Education, but the federal government has so far failed to disclose the findings of the committee to the public.


In September 2021, some part of the panel report indicting Mr Ogundipe for executing multi-million procurement fraud and contract splitting was leaked by some newspapers. But Sonny Echono, the then permanent secretary at the education ministry, denied the authenticity of the reports, claiming it was fake. Some members of the panel however told PREMIUM TIMES the leaked report was genuine.

Since it was partly leaked last year, the education ministry has held on to the original copy of the Agwai-led report and ignored the Freedom of Information (FOI) request filed by this newspaper. Against all odds, PREMIUM TIMES obtained a copy of the document the federal government refused to make public.

However, our reporting, including reviewing the Agwai-led panel report that the government wants unpublished and speaking with insiders in UNILAG and the ministry of education, showed that the Buhari-led administration is deliberately concealing the panel’s findings from the masses.

Frivolous contract awards
PREMIUM TIMES gathered that the Agwai-panel report backed the actions taken against Mr Ogundipe in 2020 by the Wale Babalakin-led governing council of the institution, but President Buhari would ignore the recommendation of the panel he had constituted.

After reviewing several committee reports and petitions accusing the Vice-Chancellor of corporate malfeasance, the presidential panel stated that “Mr Ogundipe and his management ran an opaque administration that hid the finances of the university from the governing council and the body vested in law to be the custodian of those finances”.

The panel also established that Mr Ogundipe and his team engaged in various acts of contract splitting in their procurement of goods and services for the university.


For instance, Mr Dagari, the chairman of the committee constituted by the university council in 2018 to review the expenditure of the university, appeared before the Agwai-led panel to present the report that led to the initial sack of Mr Ogundipe.

The Dagari-led committee had indicted Mr Ogundipe for spending, without due process, N112.4 million on the renovation of his official residence and the living quarters of the bursar, Olalekan Lawal, and the registrar, Oladejo Azeez.

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The committee found that Mr Ogundipe purchased two official vehicles for N52 million, spending far above the university’s tender board limit. He was also said to have spent N57.9 million on estacodes for foreign trips.

Under the Vice-Chancellor’s watch, the university paid the sum of N2.4 million monthly to Ademola Adeleke, the dean of students affairs, for 17 months. Mr Ogundipe paid Mr Adeleke from May 2017 to September 2018 for an unspecified purpose, the Dagari-led panel said.

He was also accused of spending N57.2 million on waste management and janitorial services.

“Prof Ogundipe’s defence was carefully studied. He did not deny any of these allegations, and there appears to be no valid justification in law for all his defences,” the Agwai panel report read in parts.

Multi-million fraud, contract splitting
Corroborating, the immediate past acting director of works in the university, Tunde Oloko, presented a report before the presidential panel indicting Mr Ogundipe for paying over N2 billion to contractors in excess of his approval limit and without the knowledge of the governing council.

“Engineer Oloko alleged that the vice-chancellor directly engaged in contract splitting and frequently got him to sign off on payments where there was either no execution or the execution had not been completed,” the report said. “These allegations are contrary to the Public Procurement Act and the Fiscal Responsibility Act”.

Another member of the panel set up by the governing council, Eddy Omolehinwa, gave an account of Mr Ogundipe’s misconduct as UNILAG’s Vice-Chancellor while presenting his report at the Agwai-led committee.

Mr Omolehinwa said under Mr Ogundipe, the UNILAG management budgeted N147 million for all the institution’s departments while twice that amount, a suspicious N300 million, was budgeted for janitorial services for the same period.

“This directly violates Section 7 of the University Act that vests the finances of the University in the Council,” the panel noted.

Favouritism and abuse of office

Relying on the testimony of another member of the university governing council committee, Bayo Adaralegbe, the Agwai-led panel indicted Mr Ogundipe for falsifying an interview process to favour a candidate during the recruitment process for the position of director of works in the university.

Mr Adaralegbe also accused Mr Ogundipe of attempting to get Olukemi Fadehan, the university librarian, appointed as a professor at a time the institution had no academic department for Library Science. Mr Adaralegbe submitted minutes of the council meeting where the interview process was cancelled because the scoring sheets were altered to support his allegations, according to the panel report.

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“He stated that this happened in the presence of Professor Ben Ogbujiafor, then deputy vice-chancellor of the university, Dr Saminu Dagari, then Council member and two representatives from the Federal Character Commission,” the panel report stated.

“Dr Adaralegbe alleged that Professor Ogundipe attempted to get the Librarian, Dr. (Mrs.) Olukemi Fadehan to be appointed as a Professor Librarian, at the University of Lagos at a time when the University did not have a department for Library Science and was not admitting undergraduate or postgraduate students for Library Science,” the report added.

‘VC Ogundipe rendered Registrar redundant’
On several occasions, Mr Ogundipe breached procurement procedures through some members of the tender board of the university who approved projects he nominated without proper scrutiny.

The registrar of the university, Oladejo Azeez, for instance, admitted before the Agwai-led panel that most of the tender board members were loyalists and puppets to Mr Ogundipe.

Mr Azeez admitted issuing award letters for projects based on the vice-chancellor’s memorandum without sighting and scrutinising the projects’ legal and contractual documents leading to the award of the contracts, according to the report.

The Panel also found that the office of the registrar had been “weakened and undermined” with the removal of some units under the office.

The report listed the 14 units that were excised from the office of the registrar, including Information and Public Relations, Admissions, Student Records, Student Affairs, Academic Affairs, Senate and Ceremonies, Legal Services, and Procurement.

“The registrar lacks custody and control of important confidential and sensitive documents of the university,” the report stated.

Again, education ministry denies Ogundipe’s indictment
Despite PREMIUM TIMES’ exclusive access to the original copy of the presidential panel report, Ben Goong, the director of press and public relations at the Ministry of Education, denied Mr Ogundipe was found culpable of wrongdoing by the Agwau-led committee.

He, however, failed to produce a copy of the said report.

When contacted for comments on the allegations against him, Mr Ogundipe refused to respond to multiple phone calls placed to his line. He also ignored text messages requesting his reaction to the findings in this story.

https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/546246-presidential-panel-report-details-fraud-allegations-against-unilag-vc-ogundipe.html

Booking

This VC is just too controversial and corrupt.
His tenure has been the worst so far.


HE FRUSTRATED BABALAKIN (THE FORMER PRO-CHANCELLOR) TO EVEN RESIGN.
Na VP Osibanjo dey protect am...
I heard he used over 100m to renovate his house and always getting all grants for himself and friends alone.

This is more reason they have been clamouring for UTAS, so that they could have absolute control over the University finances and to embezzled.
The university system is riddled with corruption, just like the politicians.

Some if you spill trash. Let the FG release the report and make it public Forget about these black market leaks. The report also indicted Wale babalakin if you must listen to market women tales.


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