I learn with a chuckle an article written by one Tunde S. Kwairanga, bearing the above title, revealed within the Every day Nigerian on Monday twenty first April 2025. Ordinarily, such articles, characterised by bitterness, veiled anger, and unrelenting frustration, mustn’t warrant a response. However due to the falsehoods, distortions, and misrepresentations littering the piece, and clearly supposed to solid aspersion on the present management of the College of Abuja, renamed Yakubu Gowon College by presidential pronouncement, I discover it crucial to supply a private response. My curiosity as a public commentator dedicated to the commendable steps President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has taken to redeem the picture of our tertiary establishments over the previous few months compels me to have interaction with the article.
To start with, it was crystal clear that the disaster state of affairs within the College of Abuja, earlier than the decisive intervention of the Customer, His Excellency President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, had dangerously steered the establishment towards the sting of an avoidable precipice. The media was awash with studies of inner infractions and looming anarchy, a lot of them raised by involved professors and well-meaning stakeholders. The appointment strategy of the previous Vice-Chancellor, Professor Aishat Sani Meikudi, by the now-dissolved Council had created a deeply fractious setting, one the President, as a right-thinking chief, and Customer to the College, couldn’t allow to persist unchecked. His intervention, by dissolving the Council and relieving the previous Vice-Chancellor of her place, paved the best way for the appointments of Dr. Olanrewaju Tejuoso as Council Chairman and Professor Patricia Lar as Appearing Vice-Chancellor.
In fact, each people are seasoned directors and revered educationists. Tejuoso’s appointment by the President makes it his third time in an analogous capability—having served because the pro-chancellor/chairman, Governing Council of the College of Lagos and Joseph Sarwuan Tarka College (previously College of Agriculture, Makurdi Benue State), whereas Lar, an erudite professor of medical microbiology, comes together with her wealth of educational and administrative expertise in addition to progressive touches.
Collectively, these main lights of the establishment, who got here from outdoors, quite than inside, are greater than outfitted to steer the College out of its present woods. In such a polarised and tension-laden environment, this was the one reliable and accountable path ahead. In fact, Tejuoso and Lar weren’t disaster instigators; they’re brokers of restoration.
It’s, subsequently, each laughable and unlucky for the author to explain this well-considered presidential transfer as an “imposition.” Certainly, the legislation makes provision for such emergency interventions, and the Council Chairman and Appearing Vice Chancellor are merely fulfilling an obligation to stabilise and reposition the College.
In finishing up their mandate, the 2 leaders needed to hit the bottom working. The performing vice-chancellor, Professor Lar, significantly has no a lot time — six months— and so her first job was to embark on visits to all colleges of the college to know the grievances and aspirations of the employees she met on floor. Numerous the selections that have been taken by her now stemmed from such widespread interactions which revealed mountain of complaints and petitions from inside the similar college, starting from allegations that many people—missing within the requisite expertise—had been appointed to strategic management positions ostensibly on the idea of closeness to energy, stagnation in employees promotion, in addition to non cost of their salaries.
Additionally, in lots of the models and directorates, the tenures of the heads and administrators had since expired or have been about expiring. The appointments of administrators made thus far by Professor Lar are thus justified and applicable; and certainly, many of the appointees have been professors of reputation, who know a lot about the workings of the college system.
Equally, the appointment of three senior particular assistants to the performing vice chancellor isn’t a novelty. This observe exists in different universities, the place comparable constructions assist leaders work effectively. These appointments will not be solely authorized but additionally essential to make sure that bureaucratic bottlenecks don’t frustrate real reform.I come to a different spurious insinuation: that the current promotions of some lecturers to the professorial cadre “can’t be sustained” as a result of “there isn’t a Governing Council,” and are subsequently “null and void.”
Understanding how simply the author could possibly be rightly construed as somebody missing a correct understanding of the system, he unexpectedly begged “to not be seen as a harbinger of unhealthy information.” In fact, he’s—as a result of those that have benefitted from the promotions, together with their mates and households, are excited and satisfied they really merited it. The reality is that the promotions had been duly processed and permitted by the Professional-Chancellor and Council Chairman after beneficial assessments have been returned—lengthy earlier than the performing vice-chancellor introduced them on the ground of Senate. The author shouldn’t have any concern about their validity; the promotions stay legitimate and authorized. His declare that “the majority of those that stoutly opposed the promotions permitted final yr by the Minister of Schooling on the behest of the President and Customer to the College… are actually maintaining quiet” ought to inform him that the so-called scepticism to the current promotion train exists solely in his creativeness.
Little doubt, any initiative that doesn’t take into cognisance the bottom sentiments and pursuits of some people typically obtained scepticism and criticism from those that really feel sidelined. Some would have most popular that Professor Lar succumb to the stress of indecision and timidity, permitting the quagmire she met on arrival to fester. However significant change, always, requires braveness—and sure, a measure of exorcism.
Immediately, the distinction is tangible. Senate conferences—each common and extraordinary—in addition to Congregation conferences, which have been beforehand held below clouds of rigidity and apprehension, are actually carried out in an environment of camaraderie and calm. This improved atmosphere owes a lot to the broad management model and clear imaginative and prescient of the Appearing Vice-Chancellor. Her inclusive model comparable to guaranteeing the presence and participation of key officers just like the Bursar, is a part of the executive shift in direction of higher accountability. None of those actions are unlawful or iniquitous.
Professor Lar’s mission is evident, and she or he is executing it with admirable focus. Her mandate consists of guaranteeing an open and clear course of that may culminate within the appointment of a substantive Vice-Chancellor.For the time being, the College remains to be in a fragile transition, and I see that it’s steadily returning to the trail of stability and imaginative and prescient as outlined by the President. Although President Tinubu has not but constituted the complete Governing Council, this doesn’t counsel that he has violated any legislation. Nor does it imply that these entrusted with the present management ought to fold their arms and permit the established order to stay. They need to be allowed to concentrate on their task and assist the College rise above the setbacks that inner wranglings have brought about to its progress.
Andrew Sempah writes from Akwanga, Nasarawa State.
