UNIBEN's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Osayuki Oshodin Speaks On Sacked Lecturers: ''I was poisoned by these people''

Professor Osayuki Oshodin

University of Benin (UNIBEN) Governing Council recently sacked 44 staff of the institution allegedly involved in allegations that bordered on gross misconduct...see the names of the affected staff HERE.  But since the decision was taken, the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Professor Osayuki Oshodin, says he has not had peace. Recuperating from alleged food poisoning, he raised the alarm that some of those sacked by the university Council were after his life.
Prof. Oshodin alleges that some of the sacked staff were involved in sexual harassment, extortion and fake admissions which resulted in the rustication of 142 students...see what he said below:
We learnt your life is being threatened and that you were even poisoned recently?

Yes I have been passing through hell but I am not afraid God is my protector. It is these people that lost their jobs that are threatening my life and, as we are speaking, they have not given up. So if anything happens to me, all of them should be held responsible, especially one particular man who is fond of writing frivolous petitions. He is being used, others are hiding under him to perpetrate the crime but we know all of them. 

The problem is that there was so much corruption in the university before I took over as VC and they wanted me to do it the way they ran the place before and I said no. I want this place to develop, I have more at stake in this university than any one of them. I know how the land was given to the Federal Government for the university to be sited there, part of it is my family land. 

There was no compensation paid to us, but we did not make noise about it, yet some persons think they can colonize the place with their corrupt practices. I was even poisoned by these people but I survived. When God is with you, you are fully protected. I believe that God sent me to the university for a purpose and He will not want me to die on the job. I believe they are wasting their time. 

Nobody believed that I will be Vice-Chancellor; if you know all the wrangling then, you will know what I am talking about. I did not join any group to fight for it, it was the hand work of God, God gave me the position and God is protecting me and He will protect me to the end of my tenure. And those who want to fight God will face his wrath.

 Ungodly act

A situation where you sexually harass a student and you are now disciplined, you look for who to blame and say you are being victimized. How can you collect N50,000 from a student and you say you are doing the right thing? Some of them were even caught red handed. There was a case whereby security agents were pursuing the person inside the campus. Is it not ridiculous? A big man running round the campus after he collected the money but he did not know security men were watching him. It is wicked to collect money from a poor student who can hardly feed. Parents are even suffering to get school fees and you are collecting N50,000 from them. What shocked me most is that even female lecturers were involved. 

I did not know that female lecturers can be involved in extorting money from students. I thought that women are mothers and they are motherly, that was the shocker I got. It is a shame. And I heard that some of them had taught in other universities before and they were thrown out. And this was why the Council insisted that their names must be published in newspapers so that they will not go to another university and continue to perpetrate their evil. Majority of them had been in the business for twenty years. As a result, some people have gone to the internet to publish more names that we should look as they are also extorting students. Yet they are abusing the management of the university for the action but they forgot that 142 students that were to graduate could not graduate because these corrupt staff admitted them without basic requirements. 

You know that at the point of entry, they are screened, at the point of departure, they are also screened; it was at the point of departure ‘that we discovered these 142. Some have spent five years, six years, four years but unfortunately, those years were wasted. So those ones were punished and you that admitted them that was supposed to advise them rightly, you expect to stay, no way. It will be ungodly to allow only the students and parents to suffer it. Those who perpetrated the act deserve punishment and that was the decision of Council. They ruined the life of those students because they have to go and start afresh. 

One of the staff that was dismissed was selling biometric data, and he was not supposed to. I have children and I will not allow some body do that to them, what they did was wicked and evil.I was shocked with the revelations because I never believed some of them were involved in some of these crimes. When I got to Council, where I was trying to plead for somebody because the person is a first offender, it was the first time something has been reported against him, it was then that the Chairman of Council brought out a petition he wrote against me. I was shocked. When you go on the internet, you will see the remarks of former students who said it was good they were caught.

Culled from Vanguard