Nigeria’s ivory towers have grow to be tainted by politics as universities are overwhelmed by exterior affect in selecting a vice-chancellor. Latest actions at Nnamdi Azikiwe College and College of Abuja have reignited the clarion name for an autonomous college system. IYABO LAWAL explores the intrigues which are turning into a nationwide pastime in Nigeria’s ivory towers.
It leaves a bitter style within the mouth how poisonous the tussle to be Vice-Chancellor of a government-owned college may be. The tussle bares the fang of political beasts and leaves a lot to be desired per the autonomy of state-owned universities.
Till lately, there was a semblance of respite within the ivory tower. That respite was hire with the claims, counter-claims and dissolution that befell the governing council of the Nnamdi Azikiwe College, Awka, (UNIZIK) in Anambra. The furore went so far as President Bola Tinubu having to intervene, probably to avert a possible chaos snowballing right into a political calamity. On November 20, Tinubu sacked the governing council of UNIZIK and its weeks-old new vice-chancellor.
The sack was introduced in an announcement by Folashade Boriowo, the Director of Press and Public Relations within the Federal Ministry of Training. The Educational Employees Union of Universities (ASUU) accused the establishment’s governing council of failing to comply with due course of within the appointment of Prof. Bernard Ifeanyi Odoh. It demanded that the FME dissolve the council over acts of illegality. It took just a few days for ASUU’s clarion name to be heeded.
“The Federal Authorities has introduced the dissolution of the Governing Council of Nnamdi Azikiwe College, Awka, Anambra State, following grave breaches of the legal guidelines governing the college and disrespect for lawful directives from the Federal Ministry of Training. The choice got here after it was discovered that the chairman of the Governing Council unilaterally appointed a vice chancellor who didn’t meet the minimal eligibility standards for the place. This led to a breakdown of regulation and order inside the college neighborhood, inflicting pressure and disharmony,” stated the assertion.
In a matter of days, Prof. Joseph Ifeanyichukwu Ikechebelu was appointed because the performing vice chancellor of the establishment. It was telling that Ikechebelu pledged his dedication to the establishment’s peace, unity, and tutorial excellence.
So, gone had been Odoh, the registrar, Rosemary Ifoema Nwokike, and the governing council chairman, Ambassador Greg Mbadiwe. Different council members, Hafiz Oladejo, Augustine Onyedebelu, Amioleran Osahon, and Funsho Oyeneyin, had been additionally booted out.
As a subplot, the UNIZIK ASUU chapter staged a protest to cease the collection of Odoh because the VC. Because the protest was ongoing, the choice was being carried out by Mbadiwe. ASUU-UNIZIK department chairman, Prof. Kinsley Ubaoji, referred to as on the president to urgently intervene to avoid wasting the college from complete collapse.
What was Odoh and the governing council’s offence? In a single phrase, “illegalities”, stated the federal government. The embattled professor was accused of forgery. The council was indicted for bending the foundations. Odoh’s alleged forgery leaves a fart within the mouth.
There was no hue and cry concerning his bona fide as a professor till he was chosen as UNIZIK’s vice-chancellor. His hassle is compounded because the establishment he claimed made him a professor disowned him. Odoh is pursuing his case additional through a lawsuit. The Federal College Gusau in Zamfara denied awarding professorship to Odoh.
“The so-called letters of supply of appointment and affirmation of promotion to the publish of professor, dated April 30, 2015 and November 12, 2015, had been an administrative fraud. The so-called letters and supply of appointments presupposed to be licensed true copies hurriedly endorsed by the previous registrar of the college, Ibrahim Bawa-Kaura, dated November 8, 2024, six years after he left the companies of the college, had been additionally administrative fraud,” stated Muazu Abubakar, the college’s vice-chancellor.
Abubakar stated Odoh was neither employed by the college nor appointed as a professor, insisting that there “is not any proof of official documentation with reference to his controversial employment as a employees” of the college.
On the College of Abuja (UniAbuja) a considerably related drama was brewing amid the appointment of Prof. Aisha Maikudi because the performing vice-chancellor in June. Nonetheless, a lawsuit rocking the establishment was delivered to an finish final July when the Abuja Division of the Federal Excessive Courtroom dismissed a swimsuit filed by six senior lecturers towards the establishment’s vice-chancellor.
UNIZIK and UniAbuja’s crises are paying homage to the College of Lagos (UNILAG) imbroglio years again. The Senate of the College of Lagos had rejected the removing of Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe as then vice-chancellor of the establishment by the governing council.
At an emergency assembly by 88 members, chaired by a former Dean of the College of Legislation, Prof. Chioma Agomoh, the Senate thought-about the removing of Ogundipe as being in contravention of UNILAG’s rules.
The Babalakin-Ogundipe saga was additionally a reminder of the Afe Babalola-Jelili Omotola logjam that culminated within the latter’s removing because the vice-chancellor of UNILAG.
In 2020, the College of Ibadan (UI), too, fell into ignominy as some stakeholders insisted on a “son of the soil” to be the vice-chancellor. The Central Council of Ibadan Indigenes (CCII) stated they wished then President Muhammadu Buhari to nominate somebody who hails from Ibadan because the establishment’s vice-chancellor, claiming they had been marginalised in earlier appointments.
To place it merely, the college, since 1948, had but to have an Ibadan indigene because the vice-chancellor. The CCII pushed ahead 4 Ibadan indigenes: Remi Raji-Oyelade, Kayode Adebowale, Emiola Olapade-Olaopa, and Kolapo Hamzat. They bought Adebowale.
In an handle on his first day because the chief of his nation in 1939, Sir Robert Menzies, the previous prime minister of Australia – who’s credited to be the daddy of college training and reform in Australia, requested: “What are we to search for in a real college? What causes ought to it serve?”
Although he supplied clues, successive Nigerian governments nonetheless discover the reply elusive as they proceed to ignore the advantages of college autonomy. For presidency-owned universities, the street to autonomy just isn’t paved with gold. In response to current rankings, the perfect universities on the earth are “very autonomous.” The college system in Nigeria was at a degree not related to the issues of autonomy and management. Nonetheless, by the Nineteen Seventies, the requires autonomy grew to become strident. The seek for autonomy grew to become a long-drawn-out concern for government-owned universities.
To this point, Nigerian universities have haemorrhaged within the stranglehold of their paymasters. It has been an age-long downside. At one time, ASUU and the Federal Authorities made a deal to overtake the college system after a two-month strike that shut down your complete system in 2022, jolting the federal government to motion.
Regardless of the exceptional progress of the nation’s college system, the establishments have continued to groan. In response to training consultants, Benjamin and Chituru Nyewusira, the shortage of autonomy within the universities contributed to their “lack of ability to grasp the principal enterprise of the college training, which is the event of educational contents, instructing and analysis.”
They additional argued that college autonomy is a major substructure integral to the concept of a college. Though some statutes of autonomy are entrenched within the legal guidelines organising the nation’s universities, the assorted governments and their businesses have continued to imagine the powers of the schools.
In response to some students, “this usurpation of the ability of universities in Nigeria got here into play with the introduction of the Nationwide Universities Fee (NUC).”
The re-organisation of the NUC, starting with Decree 1 of 1974, altered the unique intentions for establishing the fee as an advisory physique on issues that might immediate the event of the college system to that of a regulatory physique.
The decree was additional amended as Decree No. 49 of 1988, aimed on the growth of the board membership– bringing politics and nepotism as an alternative of autonomy.
The implementation of Decree 1 resulted in a whole centralisation of college coordination, funding and management. The implication of this was that the sanctity of the autonomy of the schools was compromised as a result of, starting with the decree, universities must work below the strict supervision of the NUC.
Stakeholders famous that by this growth additionally, the federal government moved energy away from the schools in direction of itself as a result of, within the features of the NUC, it’s noticed that universities misplaced their monetary autonomy to the fee, because it has the ability to obtain grants from the Federal Authorities and allocate such to universities based on a sure method usually subjected to politics and pursuits that haven’t any direct profit to the precise monetary wants of the schools.
In 2021, the problem of autonomy within the universities was featured at a convention organised by stakeholders in Abuja, with consultants holding the view that granting autonomy to universities and offering efficient administration by key stakeholders are sine qua non for training growth within the nation.
The federal government’s involvement elevated with controls over the structure and membership of governing councils, direct management over the appointment of key administrative personnel of universities, and monetary controls.
In impact, the federal government grew to become a key college stakeholder and decision-maker. These relics of army rule stay thus far. As such, there stays a perpetual demand by college authorities for extra autonomy to internally determine, run and execute their very own programmes and insurance policies.
Through the years, stakeholders have given Nigerian authorities the stick for permitting many universities to be weighed down by the bureaucratic calls for of political correctness, reporting and regulation that stifle productiveness and capability to innovate. This situation has led to an unsavoury state of affairs by which the perfect presently don’t thrive inside the Nigerian college system.
The 1997 United Nations Academic, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) advice in regards to the standing of upper training instructing personnel contained an in depth rationalization of the idea of college autonomy.
In response to UNESCO, there are three important elements of significant college autonomy: self-governance, collegiality and applicable tutorial management.
Whereas insisting on autonomy of universities, stakeholders maintained that granting this could assist every establishment decide its customary and handle its sources.
They argued that every college will make use of employees primarily based on benefit and never by connections.
“The position of the federal government will simply be about monitoring and guaranteeing accountability inside the college system. Competency-based appointment and performance-based administration can go an extended method to increase college efficiency,” they famous.
