By YINKA FABOWALE

Mr. Gani Saliu is a Deputy Registrar in charge of Establishment Matters in the same university.

Before his current estate, however, 50-year-old Saliu had run an entire state university in Ondo State performing the duty of the Chairman of the Governing Council, Vice Chancellor, Registrar and Bursar, at the age of 42.

Saliu was the chief executive of the Ondo State University of Science and Technology, (OSUSTECH) Okitipupa and a mere Principal Assistant Registrar when he was appointed to take charge of the institution in 2009.

The question is how come such an officer and a non-academic staff for that matter found himself calling the shots as head of a higher institution?

“That came about as a result of a vacuum created when the pioneer Vice Chancellor of the new university we are trying to build, Prof. Akinbo Adesomoju, felt frustrated and resigned, due to apparent politics of change in governance of the state then. The Appeal Court just sacked Dr. Olusegun Agagu as governor of the state and Dr. Olusegun Mimiko came in. The change in government also invariably sacked or dissolved the governing council of the university. As a result, everything, every activity was at a standstill, projects were put on hold, nothing was moving,” explained the young university administrator.

He adds: “It was at a time the university was trying to take off, when we were about to recruit academic staff and conduct admission, for the first set of students to resume in the various academic programmes approved by the National Universities Commission (NUC).”

The vice chancellor, a professor of chemistry, was said to have felt discouraged by the lull and the new Labour Party government’s lack of funding and interest in further development of the university, established by the sacked Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government of Agagu, and thus called it quits.

The university was yet to appoint other substantive principal officers including the registrar, bursar, librarian and so, Saliu, who happened to be the most senior member of the registry, was directed by the state government to coordinate the affairs of the institution of a little over 100-man work force.

The English and Literary Studies graduate of the old Ondo State University, Ado-Ekiti, which later became Ekiti State University, fell back on his experience as a student and trade union leader, as well as 14-year career as a university administrator both at his alma mater and Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko  from where he took the OSUSTECH, to succeed in the serious assignment for the nine months it lasted when a new Vice Chancellor was appointed and on his heels, a substantive registrar.

Saliu says of his experience: “It was a tough task in the sense that we operated in a system characteristic of the Nigerian political/bureaucratic system, in which university education is treated as mere appendage … we had to go cap in hands to the state ministry of education, begging for subvention. With the bureaucracy, in the ministry, you don’t get much done.”

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However, the former acting university chief executive is happy about a major victory he was able to achieve for the staff while in the saddle. He succeeded in getting the monthly subvention to the institution raised from a paltry N5m to N9m to implement a salary raise approved by NUC for all high institutions in the country, the Consolidated Tertiary Institutions Salary Structure (CONTISS) and even pay the backlog of arrears.

Saliu explains how: “For our federal counterparts, there was no problem. But as a state university, we would have to take it to the governing council for approval. But, here we were, we didn’t have council. The workers were restless, more so as Akungba (Adekunle Ajasin University) had paid in early 2010. I had to make a case and appeal to the state government through the supervising ministry and copied the Commissioner for Finance. As luck would have it, it was the Commissioner for Finance, Chief Yele Ogundipe, who assisted us by increasing our subvention from N5m to N9m, though I had proposed N11m. So, we were able to implement the new salary scale and pay outstanding arrears.”

By October 2010, however, Saliu reverted to his former rank as Principal Assistant Registrar with the appointment of Prof. Tolu Olugbemi as VC, Woleola Ekundayo as Registrar and a librarian for the university.

And how did he feel heading the university during that interregnum. Saliu says: “I didn’t see it as anything more than a call to service. I mean, it was an aberration having a non-academic staff administering a university. It would not have happened, but for the unfortunate incident.

“One was only grateful that it gave one the opportunity to gain further experience and develop the leadership skills I had been fortunate to have, even from my student days. I had, had the opportunity to lead people in my department and faculty at the Ondo State University, Ado-Ekiti. I was a class captain for eight semesters and in my final year I became the president of our departmental students’ association, the English and Literary Students Association. I was also a trade union leader. I was at different times the Secretary, PRO and chairman of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) at my former places of work.

Saliu, who switched to the University of Ibadan to assume duty as Deputy Registrar in 2014, because “to be a Deputy Registrar in UI is far better than to be in any other university,” is, however, often teased by his superiors and colleagues over his incredulous antecedent as a temporary chief executive of a university.

Chief among his teasers are the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Idowu Olayinka and his immediate boss, the Registrar, Mr. Jimi Iretola Olukoya. Prof. Olayinka it was who popularized the joke of calling Saliu “A former VC, Registrar and Bursar.” As former Deputy Vice Chancellor, he was on the panel that interviewed Saliu for his current position and had taken him up on what he did while running OSUSTECH in his former capacity there, having observed in his CV that he once practically headed the university.

A man of great wit, the VC was to always humorously refer to Saliu as “former university Chief Executive, whenever he met him, either alone or at meetings after the latter resumed work at the UI.

The Registrar, Olukoya, too good humorously refers to this his subordinate as “my colleague”

Although he admits he enjoys the fun associated with the appellation, Saliu says he doesn’t feel vain or heady by it at all. “Of course, I appreciate it, but I never allow myself to be carried away by the idea of what I am not. For instance, if, as you say, the Registrar calls me his colleague, I believe he calls those of us working with him that and it’s because we assist him, that’s why he calls us his colleagues, junior colleagues, of course. I’m just a Deputy Registrar,” the man says with a chuckle.