UNILAG visitation panel Chairman expresses regret in signing panel report

Chairman of the Special Visitation Panel on the crisis in the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Prof. Hamman Tukur Saad, has faulted some recommendations of the committee in its report.

He regretted signing the panel’s report, which the university’s Visitor, President Muhammadu Buhari, acted upon to dissolve the Governing Council and reinstate the sacked Vice Chancellor, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe.

Prof. Saad stated these in an October 7, 2020 personal letter to the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, and a November 10, 2020 letter to the Chief of Staff, Prof. Ibrahim Agboola Gambari.

The letter to Prof. Gambari reads: “As Chairman, I didn’t want to sign the Final Report, but I felt that would be a slap on the face of the government and it would generate so much bad publicity in the public domain, that I would rather sign on the understanding that the matter would be referred to the Shehu of Borno, as the Chancellor.

“As it stands now, I feel I was made a fool of and stabbed on the back by people I trusted. Furthermore, it will be impossible for any Council to manage a university in this country, if the recommendations of the panel are implemented in a Whitepaper.”

Saad’s letter to Adamu contained some revelations which were hitherto not in the public domain.

The chairman said as soon as the panel was inaugurated, he secured the mandate of the Federal Ministry of Education to bring in the Chancellor to mediate in the UNILAG crisis.

“The final recommendation of the panel was that the matter should be referred back to the Chancellor, irrespective of what the panel recommended.”  (The Nation)