ASUU seeks appointment of Ojukwu varsity VC

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University (COOU) chapter in Anambra has urged the state government to appoint a new acting vice chancellor for the institution. The ASUU chairman, Emeka Nwabunnia, who made the call at a news conference, enjoined the government to shelve the idea of re-appointing  the incumbent Vice […]

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University (COOU) chapter in Anambra has urged the state government to appoint a new acting vice chancellor for the institution.
The ASUU chairman, Emeka Nwabunnia, who made the call at a news conference, enjoined the government to shelve the idea of re-appointing  the incumbent Vice Chancellor, Prof. Fidelis Okafor, saying it would amount to “tenure elongation.”
Nwabunnia argued that the institution did not have a properly constituted and functioning governing council since January 2015 that would ensure the smooth appointment of an acting vice chancellor after Prof. Okafor.
“It is the governing council that ought to announce the vacancy for the seat of the vice chancellor which is usually made six months to the end of the incumbent’s tenure but that has not been done,” he said.
The union, he said, had written to various stakeholders to get the management and government to do the right thing.
Nwabunnia claimed that in spite of the union’s advice on appointing a new acting vice chancellor, the government was planning to appoint Okafor as the  acting VC after his substantive tenure.
His words: “This is unacceptable to the union; the law has to be followed. Someone can’t work in acting capacity, then work on substantive capacity and then go back to work on acting capacity.”
However, some members of the union numbering more than 60 have dissociated themselves from what they termed “allegations and claims of the ASUU executive.”