A Seventh-Day Adventist group, The Apostles, has urged the West African division of the church to reject attempts by the Vice Chancellor of Babcock University, Prof. Ademola Tayo, to unilaterally amend the varsity’s election guidelines in electing a new vice chancellor.
The Apostles, in a statement on Sunday signed by its coordinator, Elder Samson Fasasi, said that it was not unaware of the move by the outgoing vice chancellor to impose a successor on the university against the electoral guidelines of appointing a vice chancellor.
It stated, “The hallmark of our faith is in the purity of our actions and fairness to all, as preached by Ellen G. White. Those in positions of authority, no matter how highly placed, must understand that they are not exempted from these principles. We are not unaware of the move by the vice-chancellor to impose Professor Abiodun Adesegun on the university despite his ineligibility having passed the benchmark age of 60 years by changing the statutory age to 65.
“The vice chancellor must be reminded that his ascension into office was a result of protest and valour of men and women of good conscience who fought to ensure that due process is followed. For him to now move to truncate the same due process that brought him into office is borrowing from the playbook of Robert Mugabe.”
The group accused the vice chancellor of unilaterally changing the guidelines of the election without consulting the institution’s Senate and forwarded the edited version to the division for ratification.
The statement added, “We are hereby imploring the division to reject outrightly this descent into dictatorship under Professor Ademola Tayo. Never in the history of the church has the vice-chancellor imposed a successor on the university, albeit an ineligible one at that? Any rectification of such amendment to the guideline has the tendency of setting the entire university into chaos.”
The current VC’s tenure ends before the beginning of the next academic session.
