Note: This Article is dated 17th Of May, 2020
Before you go through my account of the sadistic erudite scholar, on top of management at the Osun State University, the Vice Chancellor, know it as a fact that I am an alumnus of the institution, and I don’t mind being called a bad ambassador as I feel that is the cheapest way to be driven off reality by sentiment. The school had so much impact on me; and by consequence, if I refused to speak out, the purpose of my education at the great citadel of learning would be defeated.
I never really had a close contact with Prof. Popoola, I think our closest contact was when we met on the stairs during one of my visits to Osogbo, where we have the main campus, and it was after I had graduated. But it is noteworthy, that it would be a gross injustice to call Prof. Labode Popoola a devil when I know the Don is more sinistrous.
The first time I came to agree that, like the Yoruba would say “omi tintun ti ru, eja titun ti wo inu e” (fresh water has found its way, welcoming strange fish) was that evening, exactly a week to exam, during my first semester exam, 300L. On this evening, every student got a message from the school, the same way our parents were copied that: without payment of tuition, there will be no exam. The policy was not just outlandish but it came in when exam was so close. Many students could not pay for obvious reasons, so they were compelled to defer that semester, while some of us who were lucky to have parents who knew how to position their compass to lead them to LAPO, scaled through. Despite the gruesome effects, we still managed to understand after being told that the school was financially trapped due to the fact that the state had stopped funding the school. If that is the case, however, I don’t know why it should still retain the Osun State University, appellation.
If I were writing this as a student of the institution, I am absolutely sure I would be needing Baba Falana, if at all I would graduate from the University. This is just to depict the imagery of how despotic Prof. Popoola is. I recall, when the agitation for students’ union government was getting out of hands, and he saw that it may come to stay if he didn’t step in, the VC randomly picked supposedly influential students across the six (6) campuses of the University, lodged them in a hotel, exposed them to a first class treat, and that was the end of agitation over SUG in the University. The students were not bought, they were manipulated.
Judging from my experience at the University, a candid response from a student contrary to the position of the University management on a WhatsApp group chat can oust the student from the system. This has happened repeatedly and the repercussions are always identical. Osun State University under the leadership of Prof. Popoola is a living spring of idiocy and ‘zombilization’, as students have no right to association and freedom of expression that could awaken the consciousness of the students to know and do the right things.
Sometime, January 2019. Prof. Popoola was alleged of misappropriating fund to the tone of 3billiom by the National Union of Non-teaching Staff of the University, headed by Comrade I.M Fayemi. In a bid to defend these allegations, the VC cocked up fictitious stories, reached out to the then governor, Rauf Aregbesola who is his close associate, to shield him from the mortification. His influence was weighty enough to sweep the allegations under carpet.
Arguably, Uniosun is the most expensive public University we have in the country. It would interest you to know that the VC met the tuition at #95,000 and within few months he assumed office, he raised it to #176,000 for non science courses and #250,000 and above for Sciences. Through out the 6 campuses of the University, the only campus with scanty facilities is the main Campus, Osogbo, where his office is. Other campuses, are like isolation centres. Through out my 4years in Osun State University, I had no idea of how the ICT looks like, and there was never a time we did anything sport related; for sport and ICT, I paid 40,000 for 4 years. If EFCC didn’t see this as a good case, I wonder what a good case is.
Most recently, it became a news that the management of the University gave palliative to host communities to cushion the unfolding effects of lockdown, Uniosun is the only University to have done that. Well, you must have thought it is a good idea, but the honest truth is that, it is another avenue for the VC to cash-out. He explained that it was the communication allowance of the top officials that was used, that is a blatant lie. This quickly reminds me of Comrade Fayemi’s description of the VC “a serial liar”. If by tomorrow, a billion got missing, they will have papers to present that they gave palliative to people as a school under the leadership of a jolly friend to the minister of interior. Let the budget come to the public, you would be wondering if they fed the whole of Nigeria.
Just few days ago, I got a news that made me run inside to check if my undergraduate degree certificate was still from Uniosun when I heard the VC encouraging virtual classroom during the online matriculation he had with the newly admitted students.
Do away with what the ICT Department displays on the school’s website, visit atleast 3 out of the school’s 6 campuses and be the one to judge if the VC meant what he was saying about virtual classroom. If they are students learning under a laborious arrangement, despite paying so much, it would be students from Uniosun. My campus hardly puts its generator on, for 2hours from Monday to Thursday. And I learnt my campus was even one of the best, in terms of facilities. On this case, I would advise EFCC to collaborates with Interpol as it is hard to believe that Prof Popoola would not have a property in Dubai. With the crazy tuition you hear, the school is not residential-it has no hostel.
The unsuspecting newly admitted students have just been scammed like ASUU said. The VC is more interested in their money; and that’s why he saw matriculating new students to be more important than seeing a way to improve the standard of learning for students already in the system.
Prof. Popoola has always proven to go away with any atrocity. Let us not give him the grace to survive this whistle-blowing. The society is in a great peril with not more than one Prof. Popoola.