On Wednesday, the Federal High Court sitting in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, rejected criminal defamation charges which arose from a petition written by legal practitioner T.S. Adegboyega on behalf of Abayomi Sunday Fasina, the vice chancellor of the Federal University Oye-Ekiti, against a former lecturer in August 2023.
Fasina had accused Adeyemi Ezekiel Oluwagbemiga, a lecturer contentiously sacked by FUOYE, of publishing a defamatory statement to the effect that he was earning a double salary from FUOYE and the Ekiti State University in contravention of pubic service rules.
The publication Fasina and the police considered defamatory was a letter the lecturer wrote and submitted to President Bola Tinubu, calling for an investigation into reported double salary payments. Some paragraphs from the said letter read as follows:
It is to the notification of the general public and on record that Professor Abayomi Sunday Fasina did collect salaries in both Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria and Federal University Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria simultaneously for the following months viz: October 2016; November 2016; December 2016; January 2017; February 2017 and September 2017. In February 2017, he collected over N1,000,000:00 (One Million Naira) as a salary in Federal University Oye-Ekiti as against the normal salary of full-time Professor which is over N500,000:00 (Five Hundred Thousand Naira) and in September 2017, he collected salary in both Universities when he had left service of Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti (EKSU) to the Federal University Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE) [See attached Folio 2 sample of petition earlier written on fraudulent collection of double salary by Professor Abayomi Sunday Fasina and other necessary documents].