Former Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Peter Okebukola, has said that the single five-term year proposed for Lagos State University, LASU, is the best way to douse the tension facing the institution.
In an interview with the Guardian, Okebukola maintained that this practice has only succeeded in "crushing one of the heads of the three-headed serpent pouring venom on LASU's peace."
He said in the interview, "The second head of the serpent, incidentally the biggest of the three that he must crush is the funding gap between what LASU needs to become a truly world-class university and what is currently available to the university from all funding sources.
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"The third head of the serpent, which happily is already being laid on the guillotine is the off-campus system for students. Now back to the single, five-year term for LASU VCs. Unknown to many, the variable with the greatest direct and indirect impact on our troubled LASU is the 'second-term for VC syndrome.' Where the model has been consigned to history in federal and state universities, relative peace characterise the university because people who are vexed by the VCs style of leadership make little or no trouble but simply say, 'the VC will soon carry his/her trouble and go.'
"Why the Lagos State government has waited for this long to experiment with the single-term for the VC baffles me. I reckon it is on account of wanting to be different from the federal system, especially when the state was ruled by a party different from the party at the centre. But this is a big mistake. As executive secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), I saw the beauty of the single five-year term. Since it took off, the number of petitions against the style of leadership of federal VCs has nosedived. Now the mistake has been corrected for LASU. I am not a betting person, but I am willing to wager that from now on, we shall see a significant positive change in the temperature of "aluta" in LASU. In the lingo of statistics, I am confident of this assertion at alpha level .001.
"If you permit a little expatiation, all the beleaguered LASU VCs had the smoke of trouble rise when people sensed the discrete or open moves of the VC to get a second term in office. While other variables interplay in this equation, it is the desire for a second term that fuels the angst of staff, especially those with axe to grind with the VC. I must applaud ASUU-LASU for its doggedness in spite of all odds to convince the Lagos State government to amend this provision in the LASU law," Okebukola explained.