Thursday 8 April 2021

LASU: Balogun Eko's latest attack on Chairman, Governing Council, a passing distraction

Success Damian:

Lagos State University (LASU) has stated that the latest attack of Balogun Eko on the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman, Governing Council of the institution, Prof. Adebayo Ninalowo, is a passing distraction 

In a press statement signed by Ademola Adekoya, Coordinator, Centre for Information, Press and Public Relations (CIPPR) of LASU, said it welcomes constructive criticism which helps to build institution, but detests criticisms embedded in falsehood.

“We acknowledge that criticisms, especially constructive ones, are necessary to strengthen institutions and that is why the authority of Lagos State University has always maintained a positive posture to constructive criticism from stakeholders. However, what the University does not view favourable are destructive criticisms, especially ones bordering on personal attacks against its name and respected officials of the University,” the statement said.

On the latest falsehood against the institution was Balógun Eko's latest salvo against the person of Prof. Adebayo Ninalowo, the quintessential Pro -Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of our University.

The statement said in recent post Balógun Eko threw every caution and decorum to the wind and exceeded all boundaries of reason and restraint to engage in a personal attack/character assassination against the person of Prof. Ninalowo.

It read that in the said video, Balógun Eko pilloried the respected Professor of Sociology, “Calling him unprintable names, in what we consider a new low, even in his own standard of tactlessness,” the statement read.

The statement maintained that as a responsible and responsive institution, “It is incumbent on us to meet such embellished falsehood, which often tends to excite, with facts, in order that the rod of the wicked may not successfully rest on the lot of the righteous.

“In the video, BalógunEko is right on one count: that Lagos State University is a great institution that should be competing with some of the top institutions in Nigeria. But what he failed to add, or perhaps deliberately omitted, is that LASU is already competing and out-competing some of the institutions he so gleefully mentioned in the video.

The fact that the university which was hitherto unrated in the global space, was ranked second best in Nigeria by Times Higher Education, is a common knowledge; it is also common knowledge that the accomplishment was engineered in a spate of five years during the Administration of the immediate past Vice Chancellor, Prof. Olarewaju Adigun Fagbohun, NPOM, SAN, under the leadership of the 10th Governing Council of the University Prof. Ninalowo.”

In further refuting the unsubstantiated claims, LASU said “Not only does he provide no substantiable proof of his wild allegations against Prof. Ninalowo, he also made no pretence of his moral bankruptcy in the process; surely, a man who could call an elder such unprintable names is not an Omoluabi.

“We therefore use this opportunity to urge all well - meaning stakeholders and the general public to ignore the post as another passing distraction,” it read.

The statement disclosed that Prof. Ninalowo has time and time again demonstrated his exemplary leadership and integrity. Not only did he supervise a seamless process that produced the 8th substantive Vice Chancellor, he worked tirelessly with the administration to meander the University from its inglorious past to become one that is now recognized and celebrated among the comity of universities in Nigeria.

“Indeed, Prof. Ninalowo's appointment for a second term as a Chairman of the Council, by the Governor and Visitor to the University, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu is an eloquent testimony of his unblemished performance in the first term.

Such an individual does not deserve the kind of ridicule that Balógun Eko attempted to subject him to and such an act should be roundly condemned by all,” the statement read.

 

 

 

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