Many professors questions how a serving academic will be appointed an emeritus professor.
Despite being involved in age falsification in order to extend his retirement date, the management of Lagos State University (LASU) is set to appoint a former executive secretary of the Nigerian University Commission (NUC), Peter Okebukola, as an emeritus professor, PREMIUM TIMES can report.
In April 2019, PREMIUM TIMES exclusively reported how Mr Okebukola, a professor of science education, used three different birth dates interchangeably to manipulate the system several times during his career.
Documents obtained by this newspaper show that Mr Okebukola has three different birth dates in the records of the university – February 17, 1949; February 17, 1948; and February 17, 1951.
Falsification of age
When employed by the institution, Mr Okebukola , who is generally regarded as the academic mentor of the incumbent vice-chancellor of the university, Olanrewaju Fagbohun, used February 17, 1949 but later presented two other birth dates – February 17, 1948 and February 17, 1951, at different times in the course of his 35-year career at the university.
While the institution noticed these discrepancies as early as 2014, he was, however, condoned. He was not sanctioned let alone dismissed as provided by university rule for the condition of service of senior staff.
On October 2, 2014, Olayinka Amuni – the then deputy registrar (who is now the substantive registrar of the university) – raised the irregularities in Mr Okebukola’s birth dates to the registrar of the university.
Mr Amuni explained that the professor ,who was employed in 1984 , with the birth date of February 17, 1949, was due for mandatory retirement on February 17, 2014, the day he turned 65.
“Professor P.A.O Okebukola was granted approval for three hundred and thirty-six (336) days deferred leave which should be utilised as terminal leave preparatory to final retirement from the service of the university,” he wrote in the letter with reference number LASU/ASE/REG/002.
Asides the deputy registrar noting the irregularities, the university’s Academic Staff Establishment, the division of the university that oversees matters of staff recruitment, promotion, discipline and welfare, flagged the discrepancies in Mr Okebukola’s birth dates after he applied for sabbatical leave in July 2014, and declined approval for the leave.
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