UniAbuja saga: separating facts from the cult of opinions and falsehood
By Professor Raphael G. Dafinone This is certainly not a good time to be a proud academic at the University of Abuja. I just finished reading a rejoinder by Concerned Northern Forum to the advertorial placed by a group of senior academics, including professors and other members of the University of Abuja Senate, in The […]
By Professor Raphael G. Dafinone
This is certainly not a good time to be a proud academic at the University of Abuja. I just finished reading a rejoinder by Concerned Northern Forum to the advertorial placed by a group of senior academics, including professors and other members of the University of Abuja Senate, in The Nation newspaper on Tuesday, August 6, 2025. The advertorial contained an open letter addressed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, issued by 97 listed academics from the University, who expressed their gratitude for his intervention in the University, and also called on him to disregard what the group described as “misguided agitations” over the ongoing leadership saga.
The rejoinder by the Forum issued by its Convener and President, Comrade Aliu Mohamed, and also published in The Nation on Wednesday, August 2025, to the consternation and shock of many, took the university dons to task. The rebuttal from the non-university actors not only exposed the factual errors and distortions in the open letter but also embarrassingly proceeded to lecture the authors of the open letter on the virtues of diligent reading and correct interpretation of constitutional provisions. It was a devastating piece that ripped to shreds the entire submission of our colleagues, who the Forum dismissed as the “self-assigned defenders of the interim administration at the university”, with the potential to prompt public doubt about the image and integrity of the university’s academia as a collective.
Considering the conduct of some of those involved in the open letter since February this year, when the University was plunged into a leadership crisis orchestrated by the Minister of Education, such a public intellectual thrashing was inevitable. Given that it emanated from a body outside the university system, it only means that the Nigerian public is no longer prepared to tolerate such a shallow script, unbefitting of academics. A day before the release of the advertorial, a prominent signatory of the open letter and quintessential poster boy of campus gangsterism, without any local, national, or international intellectual visibility, posted a piece on the professors’ platform that was also full of lies, distortions, and outlandish claims. This has been their stock-in-trade since the announcement of Professor Aisha Sani Maikudi as the substantive Vice-Chancellor of the University of Abuja on December 31, 2024. They have become adept at not only pushing false narratives but also defending the current indefensible trajectory of the University under the outgoing unlawful sole administration.
One has refrained from commenting since the inception of the crisis, seeing that the bitter opposition to the young, newly appointed, and subsequently, unlawfully removed Vice-Chancellor was essentially driven by envy and personal vendetta. Not only have all allegations raised concerning the selection process remained unproven to date, but on the contrary, the Pro-Chancellor who presided over the process and signed her letter of appointment, AVM Sadiq Kaita, has been reappointed for Bayero University, Kano. The older aggrieved professors who lost in the race were also embittered that the younger female professor of international law emerged victorious. Hence, the constellation of these hate-driven forces has taken it personally against Professor Maikudi, while providing the buffer for the illegally imposed sole administration to continue undoing their university.
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However, several factors have now necessitated all those with a modicum of conscience; and are interested in salvaging the University of Abuja from corporate and operational perdition set up for it by the Minister of Education, and being enforced with the active collaboration of the internal forces bent on sacrificing the integrity and autonomy of the university in their pursuit of self-interest and personal vendetta, to speak up and be counted. It is no longer golden to keep silent in the face of the rampaging unholy alliance forged by both external and internal forces with uncommon personal axes to grind with a precocious academic talent.
Nigerians are known to be good at mouthing religious platitudes, but believing them is something else that cannot easily be seen practically. Otherwise, power belongs to God, and it is only acquired or gotten at His pleasure. That being the case, why should the so-called ‘senior professors’ be prepared to throw the kitchen sink at the system just to sabotage the emergence of a younger colleague whose appointment conforms to the law and due process? Whatever it is, their mission, which aligns with the misguided actions of the Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Alausa, can only remain fruitless.
To start with, the open letter published in the advertorial referred to earlier has now become controversial within the university community, with several allegations of signature forgery circulating. Not a few professors have publicly denounced the unauthorised inclusion of their names and the forgery of their signatures in the said letter. Other non-Senate members were also fraudulently included to inflate the number of purported authors of the letter to 97 out of approximately 430 members of the highest academic body. This means that those who supposedly signed the letter were not up to a quarter of the Senate members. Even most of the purported authors are political appointees of the outgoing acting Vice-Chancellor, and also those she illegally announced their promotion to the professorial cadre without the involvement of the Governing Council, and its Appointments and Promotions Committee (A&PC). As beneficiaries of the current dispensation, they have become stakeholders and unrelenting in defence of its desecration and the ruination of the university’s governance and due process.
In terms of content, the open letter was poorly scripted, full of barefaced lies, and served to use the good name of the University Senate to pursue the private agenda of a few members. Acting as unofficial spokespersons for both the Minister and the illegal sole administration, the authors have also tried unsuccessfully to defend the unilateral actions on behalf of the Minister of Education. This is through their odious reference to some irrelevant constitutional provisions and endorsement of the Minister’s micromanagement of the University via the seeming “collaborative relationship” and “synergy” between Dr. Alausa and Senator Lanre Tejuoso, the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council. Perhaps it is proof of this ‘Ministerial micromanagement’ that two days to the end of Professor Lar’s 6-month tenure, no action or word has emanated from the Council on the matter.
Contrary to the best practices in the system, these fellows only know how to use lies, propaganda, and intimidation instead of facts and the law. Operating as a cult, even their reading and interpretation of the law are opinionated to suit their nefarious agenda. They had initially, under the auspices of the so-called G43 members of the University Senate, deceived the government into acting, and now are desperately striving to prevent the righting of the wrong actions committed against the University. One wonders how they have continued with the wild goose chase when the pillars upon which they rest their agitations against the restoration of proper governing structure are being unravelled by recent turn of events in the saga.
One of the false narratives being pushed to justify the government’s unilateral actions at the University of Abuja was that the selection process of appointing Professor Maikudi was flawed because the Council did not comply with the Ministry of Education’s guidelines, and she did not meet the eligibility criteria, particularly not meeting the so-called 10-year professorial rule. Even the Minister amplified this narrative when, shortly after dismantling the university’s legitimate governing authorities and replacing them with the contraption of an imposed acting Vice-Chancellor and a one-man Council, he announced the introduction of a new “integrity” quotient and directives for implementation of the guidelines. However, it is worth noting that the advertisement used to appoint Professor Maikudi, like in other federal universities, did not specify the 10-year rule.
However, it has been established that the Ministry’s guidelines are merely advisory and cannot replace or supersede the two laws guiding the selection and appointment of Vice-Chancellors of federal universities. These are the specific University Acts and the Universities (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment) Act 2003, No. 1 of 2007, otherwise known as the Autonomy Act. These two acts have not specified any professorial requirement for the appointment of Vice-Chancellors and cannot be imposed on the Councils of the universities.
It has also emerged that the Vice-Chancellor of Alvan Ikoku Federal University of Education, Professor Stella Ngozi Lemchi, whom the Minister of Education recently reinstated, had less than two years as a professor at the time of her appointment in January 2025. Now the Ministry has confirmed that her appointment met the statutory requirements of the law, the eligibility requirements, and due process. This should clear the way for Professor Maikudi’s reinstatement, having attained the rank of professor in 2021, two years ahead of Professor Lemchi.
An industrial court in Calabar has recently halted the selection process at the University of Calabar over the use of a non-legal 10-year professorial rule at the institution for the position of Vice-Chancellor. This new development emanating from the judiciary would seem to be the process of finally laying the issue of professorial requirement for the selection and appointment of Vice-Chancellors to rest. There should be no more contention since no law has prescribed the number of years professors should attain before qualifying to apply for the position of Vice-Chancellor. This should always be within the purview of the Councils of respective universities to determine, together with other eligibility criteria.
Along with this growing understanding and appreciation of the proper nitty-gritty of appointing a Vice-Chancellor based on existing rules, the federal government has also provided a fillip for the restoration of legality and due process in the affected universities. As was mentioned earlier, the government has reinstated the Vice-Chancellor of Alvan Ikoku University and also reappointed the immediate past Pro-Chancellor of the University of Abuja, AVM Sadiq Kaita (rtd), to the same position at Bayero University, Kano. These decisions, especially the reappointment of AVM Kaita, are a clear vindication of the legality of Professor Maikudi’s appointment and imperative of her reinstatement, along with the internal members of the 10th Council appointed by the University Senate and Congregation who served with Kaita as the Pro-Chancellor.
Furthermore, the abject destruction of governance and management processes at the University of Abuja over the last six months under Professor Patricia Manko Lar, who was appointed from the University of Jos, has underscored the urgent need to restore legality and normalcy in the system. This is imperative because ‘the system collapse’ we have experienced has been enormous and will be catastrophic if the prevailing ugly state of affairs under Professor Lar is allowed to continue longer than the 9th of August 2025, being her last official day in charge of the University.
It is sad to note that apart from distortion of the administrative setup and process of the university through the creation and appointment of strange and alien corps of ‘senior special assistants’ to replace the statutorily recognised deputy vice-chancellors, the university’s core values hinged on promotion of ‘unity and scholarship’ and principle of seniority were jettisoned in the appointment of principal officers (Acting Registrar), directors and heads of both academic and administrative departments and units. Consequently, the University is now heavily polarised along ethnic and religious lines.
There is also the collapse of law and order, as well as discipline in the system following Professor Lar’s bizarre and unbecoming handling of issues surrounding staff and student discipline. Apart from rewarding indicted staff with new appointments as directors or heads of departments, including the new head of administration in the Vice-Chancellor’s office, the Senate, under her watch and prompting, has also recently granted amnesty to several students, an action that has become a subject of national conversation in the country. This controversial action, which is unheard of in the Nigerian university system, has reached a new low for the University of Abuja.
To crown the failure of Professor Lar’s inglorious tenure at the University of Abuja, as we write this piece, the regular students are about to conclude their 2024/2025 second semester examinations without the results of the first semester examinations being ready for students to access. Due to her failed academic leadership, no one is sure when the results will be out for the students, their parents, and guardians.
In conclusion, the University of Abuja has lost its stride, balance, mojo, and focus since the unwarranted removal of its properly constituted authorities in February and their replacement by the illegal leadership contraption imposed by the government. It was a hugely costly policy blunder orchestrated by the misguided Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Alausa. It has caused the government heavy damage to its image and credibility as a pro-democracy outfit. Dr. Alausa is also being perceived as an arrogant emperor running an imperial ministry that is averse to the rule of law and due process.
For the University of Abuja community, it cannot wait to celebrate the end of the traumatic illegal sole administration and the exit of Professor Manko Lar, with her return to the University of Jos. Based on her woeful performance in office, as someone recently posited, may her like never happen to this University, or any other Nigerian university for that matter.
Professor Raphael G. Dafinone, University of Abuja, Abuja.