Reprieve came last week for two federal universities embroiled in leadership crises when the Nigerian presidency weighed in.
Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK) Awka, Anambra State, and Federal University of Health Sciences, (FUHSO) Otukpo, Benue State had of recent, been entangled in internal crises that threatened the peace and orderly conduct of academic activities.
Both institutions are owned by the federal government of Nigeria.
An exclusive published recently by Diaspora Digital Media had revealed how Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State used his connection at the presidency to facilitate the appointment of his ally, Prof. Bernard Odoh as the vice chancellor and Rosemary Nwokike, registrar in very controversial circumstances.
The senate, stakeholders at UNIZIK and the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU had kicked against the appointments.
They raised a number of concerns in the manner the governing council led by Ambassador Greg Mbadiwe went about it.
They alleged that the procedure for the appointments was deliberately skewed to exclude key stakeholders of the institution in utter breach of the laws. Some aggrieved staff of the university had even gone to court to challenge the contentious appointments.
There were also other allegations regarding the academic qualifications of Odoh to head that institution.
Interestingly, the Federal Ministry of Education was quick to respond to the situation, nullifying the appointments for being in “gross disregard for constituted authority and not in line with extant provisions”.
The letter from the permanent secretary had asked the pro-chancellor and chairman of the governing council to hold on other appointments pending the resumption of duty of the newly appointed minister of education.
But this did not change anything. Rather, things seemed to have headed for the worse when the governing council issued a seven-day ultimatum to aggrieved staff to withdraw all court cases arising from the appointment of the vice chancellor and registrar or face disciplinary action. It was thus, a matter of time for the chicken to come home to roost.
In the case of FUHSO, Otukpo, the unilateral and illegal suspension of the vice chancellor of the institution by the pro chancellor and chairman of the governing council was at the centre of the crisis. He had also carried the action in contravention of extant rules. All efforts by the ministry officials to get him retrace his steps were said to have been rebuffed leading to tension in that citadel of learning.
So it did not come as a surprise when the presidency dissolved the governing council of UNIZIK and sacked the newly appointed vice chancellor, Prof. Odoh and the registrar.
A statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga said the “sacking of the governing council and officials followed reports that the council illegally appointed an unqualified vice chancellor without following due process”.
It noted that after the controversial appointment, the federal government stepped in to address the tension between the senate and the governing council.
Apparently dissatisfied by the failure of the governing council to heed the initial advice of the ministry of education, the presidency was left with no other choice than to act in the way it did.
The dissolution of the governing council and sacking of the controversial appointees were therefore logical outcomes of that intransigence.
The presidency did not also spare Salami, as he was relieved of his position as pro chancellor and chairman of the governing council of FUHSO.
The decision followed Salami’s illegal actions including suspending the vice chancellor without following the prescribed procedures.
The presidency also noted that despite the interventions of the ministry of education to have the illegal suspension revoked, Salami refused and instead resorted to abusing and threatening officials of the ministry including the permanent secretary.
There was also a presidential order for immediate swap of the positions of pro chancellors and chairmen of the governing councils for the Federal University of Oye-Ekiti and Federal University of Lokoja.
This saw Victor Ndoma-Egba serving as the pro chancellor of Federal University of Lokoja taking over at the Federal University Oye-Ekiti while Kayode Ojo who previously held a similar position in Oye-Ekiti assumes the new role in Lokoja.
The change is said to be “part of President Tinubu’s initiative to foster diversity and national cohesion in the management of the country’s universities.”
It is not clear why national cohesion and diversity could not be achieved with the duo in their previous positions or their actions that impinged on those national objectives.
But the swapping of the two positions would suggest something went wrong with the initial choice of Ojo as the pro chancellor of federal university, Oye-Ekiti.
His geo-political zone gives this out. Ndoma-Egba is from the South-south. So diversity or national cohesion could also have been served by his retention in any of those institutions. But not with Ojo in Oye-Ekiti.
It is not unlikely there may have been issues in Ojo’s tenure at Oye-Ekiti that accentuated the imperative for ‘balance and national cohesion’.
Overall, it is good a thing the presidency took steps to restore order and decorum at UNIZIK and FUHSO.
The warning to the councils not to create distractions in the universities that will obstruct the focus on improving the standards of education in the country says it all.
Not a few Nigerians were embarrassed by the show of shame at UNIZIK and FUHSO.
If a vice chancellor could be appointed and sacked at will by the councils without regard to clearly established procedure, then all the grounds for the decapitation of the university system would have been set.
The universities being human organisations are not immune to disagreements. But the challenge in such situations is not in the existence of disagreements as such but their resolution in keeping with established rules and regulations.
That is one area the conduct of the pro chancellors at the two universities will continue to confound keen observers.
It is reassuring that when controversies arose in both universities on the procedure for appointing and sacking a vice chancellor, the Federal Ministry of Education (the supervising ministry) took appropriate measures to redress the anomaly. Unfortunately, those efforts were rebuffed.
Both pro chancellors trudged on as if the ministry had no statutory role in the matter. Salami was even alleged to have gone as far as abusing and threatening directors of the ministry including the permanent secretary. What emboldened him to act in that manner exposes his unsuitability for that high profile position.
