UNIABUJA and the revolving door of interim leadership contraption

By Lamino Garba It is no longer news that a new acting Vice-Chancellor has just assumed duty at the University of Abuja for a strange and unusual three-month term of office. He is Professor Mathew Adamu from the Joseph Sarwuan Tarka University, Makurdi, who succeeded Professor Patricia Manko Lar of the University of Jos at […]

By Lamino Garba

It is no longer news that a new acting Vice-Chancellor has just assumed duty at the University of Abuja for a strange and unusual three-month term of office. He is Professor Mathew Adamu from the Joseph Sarwuan Tarka University, Makurdi, who succeeded Professor Patricia Manko Lar of the University of Jos at the end of her six-month term. With over 200 professors, but with two acting Vice-Chancellors appointed in quick succession by the government from outside within six months, the University of Abuja has become the guinea pig of governmental overreach, usurpation of power, and undue interference in the era of autonomy-driven governance.

What may be news is that the latest government intervention has established the University of Abuja as a prized target for forces that are even determined to subject the government machinery to the dictates of its mission. For this reason, nothing is sacred or beyond breach, not even the laws, ethos, or etiquette of good governance and statecraft. Or else, how does one come to terms with the policy flip-flops, double standards, and discriminatory handling of issues in the university system, especially since the ascension of Dr. Maruf Olatunji as the Minister of Education? As one of the inner apparatchiks, the Minister has plunged the university into quagmire since early February, when he unduly interferred in the governance and affairs of several federal universities.
The University of Abuja was the hardest hit among the universities affected by the unwarranted leadership changes imposed by the government. Unlike the other universities, where either only the Chairman or the President’s appointees in their Councils were removed, the entire Governing Council of the University of Abuja, including the internal members appointed by the University Senate and Congregation, was dissolved. This was in addition to the removal of the then newly appointed Vice-Chancellor, Professor Aisha Maikudi.

The other universities also had the benefit of an interface between their governing authorities and the Ministry’s officials, often led by the Permanent Secretary, or investigations by ministerial committees. The University of Abuja has been inexplicably excluded from any of these fact-finding measures, for which it has remained at the receiving end of the Minister’s whims. It is curious that, given its close location, the Federal Ministry of Education has been unwilling to deploy its investigative machinery or facilitate a presidential visitation to the University of Abuja before policy actions are taken on the institution. Two reasons seem to account for this.

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One, the dissolution of the entire Governing Council and the removal of the Vice-Chancellor were not rooted in the law. The two enabling laws, namely, the University of Abuja Act and the Universities (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment) Act 2003, No. 1 of 2007, provided the bases and procedures for these actions, which the government did not conform to. Based on the provisions of these laws, a Council can only be dissolved if it is incompetent and corrupt, which has not been established. At the same time, the Vice-Chancellor can only be removed by the Council after due process, and not by the President. On the whole, as an autonomous entity, the University of Abuja, like other federal universities, has been legally exempt from undue external interference by the government or its agencies.
Two, and contrary to the initial propaganda by some disgruntled elements at the University, the selection and appointment of Professor Aisha Sani Maikudi as the 7th substantive Vice-Chancellor conforms with the law and due process. To date, none of the wild allegations raised against the process conducted by the dissolved Council has been proven. Even when the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) sent a fact-finding team based on the two petitions submitted to its national headquarters by the so-called G44 members of the University Senate agitating against the appointment of Professor Maikudi, the petitioners failed to appear and interact with the Union’s visiting team for an apparent lack of merit in their agitations.
In addition, all attempts to push the narrative of non-compliance by the Council with a 10-year professorial requirement prescribed in the so-called ministerial guidelines for the appointment of Vice-Chancellors have remained dead on arrival. For not being part of any law, consistently being disregarded by several universities, and now a reason for halting the selection process for appointing a new Vice-Chancellor at the University of Calabar at a court of law, the entire university system has arrived at a compelling unanimous consensus on the true status of the ministerial guidelines: they constitute a mere advisory without the force of law and hence not mandatory to apply or use by universities!
Hence, determined to subdue the University, but since the application of the law and due process was not an option, the only way out was to make it a fait accompli. This has been the unfortunate governance trajectory of the University of Abuja since early February, when a leadership contraption outside of the law, comprising an acting Vice-Chancellor from outside and a one-man Governing Council, was imposed to run the institution. This also explains the bizarre scenario where, at the expiration of the 6-month term of the first imposed acting Vice-Chancellor and even with a Governing Council in place, another acting Vice-Chancellor has been imposes, in the name of President Tinubu, this time for a 3-month term. This has left the University of Abuja community shocked and awed, with the education sector and the nation at large also bewildered and dumbfounded.
For the internal members appointed by the University Senate and Congregation, instead of being the praetorian guard of the system for which their exalted position demands, they opted for acquiescence and remaining as gullible spectators in a power game that is fast exposing their ineptitude.

This is notwithstanding the ongoing transition for the selection and appointment of a new substantive Vice-Chancellor, which is already booby-trapped and haunted by the growing outcry and need for reinstatement of the ousted Vice-Chancellor, Professor Aisha Maikudi. The incongruity of an acting Vice-Chancellor not recognised by the existing laws midwifing with the Governing Council, the appointment of a new helmsman is also a red flag for possible escalation of the leadership crisis, and even judicial ambush. Even the Council itself has given credence to doubts surrounding the process with the inclusion of a strange clause in the advert allowing it to review, cancel, or withdraw the advert at any time without prior notice.
Furthermore, the recent reinstatement of the Vice-Chancellor of Alvan Ikoku Federal University of Education, Owerri, by the Honourable Minister of Education, as well as the reappointment by the President of Air Vice Marshal Sadiq Kaita (rtd) as Pro-Chancellor, alongside Professor Ralph Akinfeleye and Mrs. Dorcas Orbih to the Councils of other universities, renders the reinstatement of Professor Aisha Sani Maikudi an imminent and compelling necessity.

It is pertinent to note that the three reappointed Pro-Chancellor and Council members were originally government appointees in the dissolved Council of the University of Abuja. Following the passing of Hajiya Rita Rakiya Alfa, the only member not reappointed by President Tinubu is Alhaji Sabo Bappayo Misau from Bauchi State. This selective omission, particularly where the two members from the South were reinstated while the one from the North was excluded, raises grave concerns of discrimination and double standards. A similar inconsistency is evident in the case of Professor Stella Lemchi from the South, who has been reinstated as Vice-Chancellor, while Professor Aisha Sani Maikudi—who attained the rank of Professor two years earlier and hails from the North—remains unjustly excluded.

Taken together, these instances suggest a disturbing departure from the constitutional principles enshrined in Section 14(3) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), which mandate the promotion of national unity and the avoidance of domination by persons from a few states or ethnic groups. They also run contrary to Section 42 of the Constitution, which expressly prohibits discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, origin, sex, or political opinion. Any policy or action that privileges one region while systematically excluding another not only erodes confidence in the administration of justice and fairness but also undermines the federal character principle, which is fundamental to Nigeria’s governance architecture.

The recall of erstwhile dissolved external Council members by the government not only absolved the Governing Council of the University of Abuja of any wrongdoing, but also validated its selection and appointment of Professor Maikudi as substantive Vice-Chancellor. This automatically raises the imperative to reinstate both Professor Maikudi and the removed internal members of the Council, who, in the first instance, were not presidential appointees but elected representatives of the University Senate and Congregation. This remains the surest path to saving the University of Abuja from the inglorious tyranny of a revolving-door leadership contraption, and for the Tinubu administration, the most credible avenue to restore integrity in university governance and higher education management more broadly.

Lamino Garba, P.hD Faculty of Management Sciences, University of Abuja.