The authorities of the University of Ilorin, Kwara State (UNI-LORIN) yesterday denied that it had been discriminating against 44 out of the 49 reinstated lecturers of the institution.

The lecturers, who were sacked in 2001, were reinstated by the Supreme Court in 2009.
But 44 of the reinstated lecturers have gone to the Federal High Court, Ilorin seeking a contempt trial against the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, for allegedly not implementing the judgement of the Supreme Court.

Although the case is expected to come up today, the university has filed a counter-motion against the application of the 44 lecturers.

They accused the university of not fully reinstating them by refusing to approve their annual promotion, leave allowances and sabbatical entitlements.

In an affidavit by the Registrar of the university, Mrs. Olufolake Oyeyemi, the university said it had implemented the judgement of the highest court in the land.

It explained that it had so far paid over N493.2million to all the 49 lecturers, including the dead among them.
The Registrar said: "The Vice-Chancellor, on their reinstatement, briefed the Senate at an emergency meeting held on December 22, 2009 where he urged all staff to make the return of the reinstated staff as smooth and seamless as possible. He additionally issued a press release stating the University's preparedness to fully comply with the verdict of the apex court. In furtherance of this, the administration set up a Committee to implement the judgement of the court.

"Also, the appointment of one of them, Dr. Afolayan, as Head of Department, is a demonstration of the confidence reposed in him considering the fact that Headship of a department is a management position which is usually given to trusted people.

"In a sister case, Suit No. SC/75/2007, the university paid from its purse, the first 5 judgement creditors including deceased staff creditors before the Federal Government released the fund for settling the judgment.

"When the university finally received funds from its proprietor, it paid the entitlements due to all of them including the judgement creditors.

"When observations were made about the correctness of the amount due to the judgement creditors, a meeting was held with the judgement creditors’ Accountant and supplementary payment made where errors were detected. See Exhibit 11.

"To further demonstrate the University's commitment, the Vice-Chancellor made personal visits to the Chambers of the judgement creditors' lawyer and held meetings on many occasions to clear grey areas in the Implementation of the court judgement. John Baiyeshea (SAN) can bear witness.

"We wish to state from the points made above that the University of Ilorin is a law-abiding institution particularly as it has made a lot of efforts to ensure that Supreme Court judgement in this case is satisfied. Even the notice was delivered to the University without any hindrance, contrary to their averment," Oyeyemi said.

"The judgement debtor is not aware of substituted service of Form 48 and 49 lack of knowledge which is premeditated by the judgement creditors and the Court Bailiff’s refusal to make  effort on personal service. Neither us nor any of our lawyers was informed, it was just contrived.

."We state that the statement is false as we have' incontrovertible evidence of at least one of the judgement creditors who has written to dissociate himself from the claimed authority. The act is therefore seen as nothing but a campaign of calumny and a deliberate attempt to bring the University to disrepute.
"We state that the Supreme Court judgement does not provide that whoever is not qualified for anything should be given automatically by virtue of the judgement or that they be given special 'consideration that all their demands should be met irrespective of the regulations and laid down procedures of the University."

On leave, the university said: "Since their reinstatement some of them who applied for leave were considered and granted. See sample of letters of those who applied and were granted in Exhibits 3(a), 3(b),3(c) and 3(d).

"In response to paragraph 12 of the affidavit, the University has required that by our letter of 15th April, 2011, any of such can apply and utilize part of their leave thereof during the three to four months of the University long vacation period like other staff members. "We still believe that anyone who applies during the three to four months long vacation period would enjoy it. (See Exhibit 12). There are other members of the academic staff who have more than 10 years accumulated leave and have not been able to utilize them because they have to take them during long vacation, e.g. Professor I. Oloyede, See Exhibit 13(a) and Professor K.L. Ayorinde, See Exhibit 13(b)."

On sabbatical leave, the university said: "Granting of Sabbatical Leave is not automatic for member of staff. To be granted sabbatical leave, an applicant must, according to the provisions of Sections 7~13.0 - 7.15.0 of the University's Conditions of Service: be of the rank of Senior Lecturer and above; have worked continuously for a minimum of six calendar years from the date of attainment of   senior lectureship and/or date of return from a previous sabbatical leave; submit a plan of work to be considered and approved by the Appointments and Promotions Committee; submit a letter of placement from an approved institution where he/she intends to spend his/her Sabbatical Leave;
"Be within the quota (5%) approved for his/her Faculty. See Exhibit 4 showing the quota in operation in a Faculty.

"None of the Judgement Creditors fulfilled any of these conditions and was denied. Indeed, the only person among them who minimally satisfied the conditions was graciously granted the leave as he himself acknowledged (See Exhibit 5(a) and he is currently on sabbatical leave at Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State.

"Indeed, the Vice-Chancellor gave anticipatory approval of his application pending the meeting of the Appointments and Promotions Committee (A&PC) which is the statutory organ for such approvals.
"Furthermore, there are staff members who have worked continuously for the last ten years and have not been granted sabbatical leave even when some of them applied. E.g. Professor Y.A. Quadri, Professor 1.0. Oloyede, and Professor J.A. Adeniyi.

"To show that the claim is indeed frivolous, one of the judgement creditors, Professor Anjorin, once wrote as Head of Department to suspend the annual leave of all academic staff in his Department. (See Exhibit 10)."
Regarding promotion, the university said: "In response to paragraph 7 of the Affidavit, we wish to state that promotion exercise is carried out once in a year but not that every staff is entitled to annual promotion.

Circulars are sent out annually requesting each qualified staff to apply and the rules include the  following: response to Call Circular issued annually, which is an Internal Memorandum; (See Exhibit 7); candidate must have spent a minimum of three years on his/her present grade; candidate must have acquired appropriate points in the scoring of academic publications and administrative experience; there must be an established vacancy where the applicant is aspiring to. (See also Exhibit 2 for ii, iii & iv.

"On promotion, academic staff promotion is based not only on years of teaching but also on certain other criteria including publications. There must also be an application by the candidate. It is worthy to note that prior to their nullified disengagement, many of the judgement creditors had been on the same position for more than the minimum years for promotion, for reason of not satisfying the established criteria for promotion. For emphasis, we wish to state that it is not time only that determines the promotion of an academic staff.

"We deny categorically paragraph 11 of the affidavit and put the judgement creditors to the strictest proof of same. We state further that there is no provision for monetization in the regulations of the University. Leave allowances have been consolidated already in the payment of the judgement creditors' entitlement. (See Exhibit 11).

"We aver that the lawyer of the judgement creditors misled the Court to go through a garnishee process as there is no provision for monetization of leave entitlements in the University regulations. A person who had left the service or died could only be paid the leave allowances, and in all the cases, this had been done. Even the money paid (at the judgement creditors' instance) by the University to the third party where they had received public fund, the salary for the same period were inexplicably included in the garnished sum which they misled the Court to hold from the University. See Exhibit 14.

"We aver that every University is independent of another and has its own separate Conditions of service. Therefore the promotion of the following judgement creditors, RJ. Ndom, A.B. Makanjuola, B.A. Solagberu, O.E. Alana, and P.O. Olatunji, in the various State Universities mentioned in paragraphs 19 to 23 of the affidavit, none of which ranks near the University of Ilorin in any of the world Universities ranking, does not qualify them or the judgement creditors for promotion in the University of Ilorin.

"We also aver that while we are not in a position to affirm their promotion (and it is unnecessary for us to do so), each University has different criteria for promoting its staff. "For example, S.E. Ododo was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Performing Arts, University of Ilorin and was appointed Professor in the University of Maiduguri , Dr. A.A. Adesokan a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry, University of Ilorin was appointed as Professor in Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso. Also Dr. N.O. Mohammed of the Department of Biochemistry who was appointed Reader at the University of Ilorin in 2011 was appointed Professor at the Federal University, Dutsin-ma. Dr. (Mrs.) M.O. Araoye, a Senior Lecturer in the University of Ilorin was appointed Professor in Benue State University, Makurdi. Dr. S.E. Ododo, See Exhibits 17(a), Dr. A.A. Adesokan, 17(b), Dr. N.O. Mohammed, 17(c), Dr. (Mrs.) M.O. Araoye, 17( d).
"Contrary to the claim in paragraph 24 of the affidavit, the University did not refuse to promote the judgement creditors Nos. 17 and 10. The letter only stated that the process was aborted in line with the regulation which states that this be done when there is no reply from the external assessors after two years. See Exhibit 18."