Who is Ayanlola Ayanteju who wrote the bad-blood article recently going round the globe about the UI’s VCship?
– What is (CAFE) Campaign for Academic Freedom and Excellence?
– There must be an end to barbaric name calling
– UI has moved on, beyond the bad waters of the last three month-five months
– GOOGLE has no record of Ayanlola Ayanteju beyond the claims of the fellow being the spokesperson of spineless CAFE.
– No such staff member exists in the records of the university
– No such pen name exists anywhere in the globe
– Or is CAFE a registered pressure group? When was it inaugurated? Who are the members of this pressure group? What is this pressure group lobbying for? Who are the sponsors and patrons?
What is at stake for these persons whose campaign of calumny just took a fresh dimension upon the university’s resumption and evident successful reopening of the campus.
This interrogation is in direct response to the last two publications released by Ayanlola Ayanteju through blogs.
One cannot but notice that the key words in these publications speak directly to the intentions of these unscrupulous persons who have no social media conscience at all. That you have access to blogs that can pick up useless sensational and controversial issues (there are blogs that are more reasonable and progressive) and that only seek traffic on social media should not mean that you should have no respect for an established institution like the University of Ibadan and its solid structure.
We are in a season of a global pandemic. This on its own has led to diverse global protests. UI is not PDP and APC or other political or ethnic factions at war. The sort of lies made and peddled in partisan politics should not be tolerated around or about the ivory tower.
The University of Ibadan management has for too long tolerated this abuse of social media to narrate for it its activities and mis-define its identity.
It has for too long ignored the effect and far reaching consequences of the fables made up by those whose goal is to discredit any UI administration that is not under their influence.
The University of Ibadan has structures. Senate is One, at least now, and there is no negative development currently rocking the affairs of the university. And even the Federal Government of Nigeria does not seem to have any issues with the way the UI affairs now stroll past curves and bends.
Let whoever has noble ideas about the way the University of Ibadan VCship should go follow due process. Anything short of that is idiotic, chaotic, barbaric, divisive, and suicidal.
As academics, we should learn from the maturity of the United States. A word is enough for the wise. This time, UI cannot afford not to get it right again. Let’s allow the candidates live their credibility, qualification and competence on the stage of fairness; and let us make an equitable choice together. Enough of I am for Paul; I am for Apollo. This at least is what FG expects from UI this time. WE can make; we can do it! We cannot return to the savagery that dragged us into shame and disrepute the last few months. We are truly the first and the best in this clime: let us prove to be.
The university has just reopened for business after the elongated ASUU strike coupled with the consequences of the pandemic that grounded all activities to a halt since March, 2020. CAFÉ detractors definitely realise that the Acting VC and the entire University of Ibadan community have a lot to struggle for in their plates, and want to insidiously creep into the peace of the university and heat it up to a level chaos will be an inferno to beat by the time the community finds time to notice the havoc!
This is not good for the University of Ibadan system. What does it profit anyone to pull down this great, unrivalled institution?
Spineless CAFÉ, note these:
a. The University Community knows you, but has decided to keep quiet to disallow heating up the polity with fire that can consume all
b. The community has a grip on your style: Discredit reputable persons; discredit reputable and certified processes; generate unsolicited petitions home and abroad; make and peddle despicable and damaging lies ( e.g taxation fraud to attract the attention of the Federal Government and the Visitor of the University and then generate false claims over staff allowances that are yet to be processed or paid just to generate tension among the class of U.I staff who can do anything at the rumours of owed monies).
Let us have peace in the UI system please. UI has done a lot for us all, let us give back to it at least the stability with which it has nurtured us.
Let’s Get it Right UI Academics’ Group