by Dr. Joseph O. Ibrahim
To say that Professor Aisha Sani Maikudi’s removal from the office of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Abuja last week on the reported orders of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was conceived, processed, and executed in blundering steps is to say the obvious.
How President Tinubu was convinced or allowed himself to be persuaded to approve such an ill-advised course of action in the attempt to address the lingering, albeit usual noises over the appointment of the new substantive Vice-Chancellor at the University completely beats one’s imagination.
As an alumnus of the only federal university in the federal capital territory and who is still reeling with anger over the unwelcome change of its name to Yakubu Gowon University, one is concerned and alarmed because this is one action when thoroughly interrogated, is capable of rubbishing and undoing Asiwaju’s records as a thorough-bred technocrat and legendary talent-hunter up until now. This will be doubly so to me, given that I have always admired the Jagaban and his famed political sagacity.
His precipitate intervention in my beloved alma mater was poor in every material particular, and I should know having obtained all my three degrees from the University in my over three decades of engagement with the Institution.
My current sojourn as adjunct staff at the University has exposed me to what transpired during the transition and the immediate fallout after Professor Maikudi was announced as the new substantive Vice-Chancellor on 31st December 2024. It may be pertinent for the outside world to be informed of the untold story of the gross injustice meted out to one of Nigeria’s youngest leading academic lights.
For starters, the contrived ‘leadership crisis’ at the University of Abuja that some online media outfits, were being used to sensationalise and scandalise was not the first at the Institution. In the 2014 transition that threw up Professor Michael Adiukwu as the 5th substantive Vice-chancellor of the University, a similar crisis erupted with even a dangerous religious dimension that escalated into a legal dispute instituted by some internal members of the then Governing Council led by a Deputy Vice-Chancellor.
The protracted crisis simmered for years yet the President Muhammed Buhari-led regime rightly and sensibly too did not deem it necessary to intervene not to talk of wielding the big stick of a sack on anybody involved. The University subsequently resolved the crisis and found its bearing to allow the Professor to enjoy his full tenure as the Vice-Chancellor. So also did the Council led by the late General Ogbumedia serve out its tenure without undue interference from any official quarters.
Again, the current crisis was simply a matter of a sore loser in the race for the topmost position, Professor Sani Mashi mobilising his friends and associates in the Institution to protest the outcome after Professor Maikudi was announced the 7th substantive Vice-Chancellor by the now dissolved Governing Council.
The protesting group has been crisscrossing the media houses accusing the Council of legal violations and non-adherence to due process in the appointment of the new Vice-chancellor. It specifically alleged that Professor Maikudi was not qualified for the job having been just two years Professor and that the position is meant for a professor of not less than ten years. To buttress its position and relentless campaign against both the Council and the newly appointed Vice-Chancellor, the group continuously referred to the guidelines the Federal Ministry of Education produced for its representatives on the Councils of all federal tertiary institutions.
Notwithstanding that the guidelines in question are merely advisory without the force of law and therefore not made mandatory for any of the tertiary institutions to apply, the protesting noise-making dons have to date not specifically cited any provision of the only two Acts regulating the appointment of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian federal universities that has been breached by the defunct Council.
These are the Universities (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment) Act 2003, No 1 of 2007, and the University of Abuja Act. Even in all interviews with the press and the petitions, they wrote to both the government officials and the immediate past Chairman of the Governing Council, Air Vice Marshal Sadiq Kaita (Rtd), did they dare to mention specific provisions of these extant laws that the Council breached in the process of appointing Professor Aisha Maikudi. Simply because there were none so breached.
They further exposed themselves to the University community when the two members among them initially appointed by the University Senate to serve on the Selection Board for the appointment of the Vice-Chancellor, Professor K.M. Waziri and Professor Rose Udeozor, avoided all the meetings convened involving the Council, Management and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to address the issues they raised on the transition.
At several meetings held with various stakeholders, including the local ASUU expanded Executive Council and Congress meetings, Senate meetings, and the Council’s interaction with the staff of the University’s Legal Directorate, the unanimous position was that the Council did not breach any of the extant legal provisions for the appointment of the Vice-Chancellor. It is an open secret in the Nigerian university system that ASUU would have been the first to raise the alarm or protest any breach of the selection process by the Governing Council.
Given that the protesting professors could not convince anyone to their side within the University community, they opted to escalate the matter outside the Institution. Together these dissenting members of the Senate and Council continued to make noises replete with hackneyed lies and unfounded allegations against the Council and the newly appointed Vice-Chancellor.
For instance, in the case of the Vice-Chancellor, they continued to peddle the lie that she was a two-year professor when in truth is, she became a Professor in 2021; the same year, the current vice-chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Professor Faruk Adamu Kuta, became a professor. The latter was appointed and assumed office as Vice-Chancellor on 3rd December 2022 barely one year two months after becoming a professor!
The dissenting group further leveraged links with the media practitioners being a long-term journalism and mass communication teacher to continue instigating negative press on the so-called crisis which led the government to inexplicably wield the big stick against both the Council and the Vice-Chancellor.
President Tinubu’s actions on the day Professor Maikudi presided over the most colourful and highly attended matriculation ceremony for new students in the annals of the University have left the community confused, dumbfounded, shocked, and awed. The bizarre and shocking news also filtered into the University’s Main Campus at a time when Air Vice Marshall Kaita was presiding over the meeting of the Council’s Finance and General Purposes Committee.