The National Industrial Court sitting in Ibadan, has nullified the sack of a lecturer in the Department of English and Linguistics at the Ikire campus of the Osun State University, (UNIOSUN), Dr. Wale Ojoniyi, whose video went viral in 2016 as he engaged one of his students, Mercy Ikwue, in sex-for-marks.
Reports say that the court, in the judgment declared that the whole episode was a ruse and a frame-up to cover the real culprit of examination malpractice in the university, ordering the immediate reinstatement of the plaintiff with all rights and privileges.
The court pointed out that Ojoniyi’s problem with the university started, following his role on a panel, where he insisted that one of the lecturers who was discovered to have manipulated students’ results should be investigated as he provided evidences against her.
Further reports say that it is recalled that a video had gone viral in 2016, showing Ojoniyi, who is also a Pastor and theatrist, naked in a hotel with a student identified as Mercy Ikwue.
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The student was said to have surreptitiously used her laptop to record the sexscapade of the lecturer after she was lured to the hotel, but herself and any sexual intercourse were not shown in the video.
Additional reports equally revealed that Ojoniyi was thereafter suspended for six months following the viral video, to allow investigation into the matter and was later dismissed. In response, he protested to the Academic Staff Universities Union (ASUU), University Management, Osun State House of Assembly, State Governor and the Nigeria Union of Journalists and Osun State Council, all all to no avail. He, therefore, resolved to go to court.
The court held that the Fact-Finding Committee that investigated the allegation of manipulation of results, through which one Prof Olukoya Ogen introduced a purported audio visual evidence that he was the one changing results, was illegal, null and void.
“From all evidences before me, Dr. Amao Temitayo Ayanbisi was responsible for the manipulations of the results, for she confessed to doing so before the panel and she did not appear before the court to plead her case otherwise throughout the sittings.”
The court wondered what really could be the relationship and interest of another member of the College, Prof Olukoya Ogen in Dr Amao, that made him to go to the extent of blackmailing Ojoniyi to negotiate the dropping of the evidences in the possession of the plaintiff, that indicted Amao as the one who is responsible for results manipulation, being the only one who was in charge of the results that were manipulated.
The court dismissed the video evidence of Ogen on the grounds that: He is not the maker of the said video. Whoever the maker is, did not present it to the university and did not make any claim on it and that how the video was sourced by Ogen is shrouded in mystery.
The court cited at least six authorities to state that Ogen did not have any locus standi to present the video, as he cannot give a true witness on its content being that he is not its maker.
The video was dismissed as a busybody material, and the court held that Ojoniyi’s six months indefinite suspension without investigation was illegal, null and void and declared the processes leading to his dismissal as illegal, null and void for being based on false premises and for not following the university rules and procedure for such.
The court frowned at and condemned the management of Osun State University for attempting to cover gross manipulation of students’ results and called on visitors to the university to look into the rot in the institution.
Meanwhile, the judge, Justice John Peters, ordered the payment of all salaries and arrears from the date of the plaintiff’s illegal dismissal to date and for the six months illegal suspension.
