By Wole Balogun, SA Media to VC
The Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Ekiti State has honoured the Vice-Chancellor, Federal University Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE), Prof. Abayomi Sunday Fasina, in recognition of his excellent performance as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the University.
Prof. Fasina emerged the VC of the University on February 11, 2021 and has performed admirably well in three years of his administration.
A member of the chapel and Correspondent of the Guardian newspapers in Ekiti State, Mr. Afolabi Adegbuyi, who spoke on behalf of the journalists, said Prof. Fasina has performed admirably well by raising the bar in managing the University. He added that the Professor of pedology would be the first VC to be so honoured by the Correspondents’ chapel in recognition of excellence in public service in the academia.
Justifying the award, which was titled “Icon of Excellence in the Academia”, Adegbuyi said:” We have watched keenly your activities as the Vice-Chancellor of this University and we are fascinated by the tremendous achievements you have made. There are a whole lot of silent revolution going on here since you came on board. Though, we are to serve primarily as watchdog and hold public officers responsible and accountable, however, we reasoned that when somebody is doing well, we should also acknowledge it. We look around and we discover that you deserve it. This is an honour we do not accord just anyone but those who really deserve it. For your information, no VC has received such award in this state. You are the first VC to be awarded.”
Responding, the excited Prof. Fasina appreciated the journalists for honouring him, promising that the recognition would ignite the passion to do more.
He also responded to questions on his take on the recent announcement of the removal of universities from the IPPIS, saying it was the best decision from the Federal Government which would bring effectiveness and efficiency into the running the system,
His words:” We know what we are and we know how much we can pay and how many we can take care of. The advantage now is that we are now independent to decide on proper management of the system. We can always also take from our IGR to supplement what we are given by the government.
“Another advantage is that we want the government to increase our salary and with this development, we can subsidize such increment with our IGR. We are currently poorly paid as lecturers in Nigerian Universities. For example, a Professor earns less than half a million Naira. Late Nimi Briggs who was chairman of Pro-Chancellors told the government that no Professor in Nigeria should earn less than a million Naira.
“In Rivers State, Governor Wike ensured that VCs in his state earn 2.3M each, while a Professor earns about N1.2M monthly. A Professor in public university in Nigeria earns a paltry N420, 000! . The situation has to change.
“This development will save us a lot of troubles of running to Abuja to get approval for so many things we can easily handle on our own. Such things as recruitment and others.
We are having the autonomy now and we would manage our system efficiently on our own.
“There is so much bureaucracy in IPPIS which gives us so much headache. We have some of our staff members who haven’t collected their salary for many months now because of that bureaucracy . We have a situation where a former VC who went on sabbatical was denied his salaries on return for several months due to the bottlenecks of IPPIS.”
Assuring that FUOYE under his administration would continue to strive for excellence, he said: “ We have unbundled the mass communication department into a full faculty and we are going to make effort to get grant with which to fund the faculty heavily for optimal productivity. We will have our own radio station and studio of international standard and what have you?
