Acting VC convenes stakeholders’ meeting on UI VC race | EduCeleb
EduCeleb
20th December 2020
The Acting Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Professor Adebola Babatunde Ekanola, is convening a stakeholders’ meeting in Ibadan on Tuesday to chart a way forward towards the appointment of a substantive vice-chancellor for the 72-year old institution.
Ekanola, who succeeded Professor Idowu Olayinka, on 1st December in acting capacity mooted the idea of the meeting to have a road map before the expiration of his six month tenure.
Those invited for the meeting were all past Vice-Chancellors, internal members of UI Council, internal applicants for the post of Vice Chancellor and religious leaders.
It is not immediately clear if Olayinka would be at the meeting considering that some see him as an interested party that led to the botched VC recruitment process in November.
A party to the matter believes that even the acting VC, who is the convener, may not be neutral except he wants to be now as he had spoken and acted in support of a particular candidate before.
Virtually all the past VCs have written one recommendations or the other for the applicants .
There are insinuations in some quarters that the meeting is coming too early just three weeks after the VC election imbroglio and that such a parley ought to be convened by a neutral body or person.
“However, if the acting VC can be true to his intentions, we hope stakeholders will consider the larger interest of the University of Ibadan and put in place a process that will be open and credible.
”It should be devoid of any ethnic or religious divisions, and aspire to mend all differences and gulfs created by the outgone VC,” a concerned senior academic said.