Obasanjo denies receiving pay at NOUN, says service is pro bono

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has denied being paid N40,000 as a lecturer at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN).

A national newspaper (not The Guardian) has reported that Obasanjo receives the said amount as monthly salaries for his service as a lecturer.

But a statement yesterday by his media aide, Kehinde Akinyemi, in Abeokuta, said: “Ordinarily, this will have been an unnecessary exercise if it has been the usual shenanigans of the media to sell their newspapers, but the very clear quotation of the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Abdalla Adam, on the headline made this clarification imperative and to set the records straight on His Excellency’s engagement with the university.

“In putting the records in right perspective, His Excellency wishes to draw the attention of the vice chancellor to his letter dated April 12, 2018, which was written to the university’s Registrar, Mr. Felix Edoka, when the Council offered him a part-time appointment as an Instructional/Tutorial Facilitator and Project Supervisor in the Faculty of Arts at the Abeokuta Study Centre.

“The former President affirmed that he has not received any dime either as salaries or otherwise from the university and not planning for such now or forever, as stated in his letter that the appointment was received with “pleasure and duty to give back to others out of what God and NOUN have given me.”

“The publication, which has generated mixed reactions from the general public and calls from far and near on the elder statesman expressing concern, is to say the least, embarrassing, uncharitable, mischievous and in bad taste, with immediate demand for a retraction and apology from the office of the Vice Chancellor.”