SSANU urges government to prosecute VCs over corruption

There is the need for the Federal Government to adopt unorthodox approach to tackle corruption in the university system, the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has said.

The Association in a communiqué signed by its National President, Samson Chijioke Ugwoke and the National Publicity Secretary, Salaam Abdussobur, after its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting at the Federal University, Kashere, Gombe State, lamented that its members that had helped to expose alleged corrupt practices of some vice chancellors were subjected to harassment and suspended while the government kept mute without taking appropriate actions against the VCs.

The association posited that it would amount to double standard on the part of the Federal Government not to arrest and prosecute corrupt vice Chancellors in the universities the way suspected corrupt judges were arrested to save the university education.

While welcoming President Muhammadu Buhari back to the country from medical sojourn from United Kingdom, SSANU said the health challenge of the President calls for urgent provision of adequate medical equipment to all public hospitals in the country.

The association expressed concerns about the non-constitution of university governing councils as many of the present councils have elapsed.

“Appointment into the Governing Councils of Universities should not be for political patronage or settlement and Government should avail itself of the use of seasoned university administrators (Registrars and Bursars), whose experience and knowledge of the University system would serve the universities in better stead,” it submitted.

The association expressed dismay at the alleged flagrant disobedience of court judgments/rulings in a democratic dispensation. Therefore, SSANU demands that the Federal Government implements the judgment of the National Industrial Court (NIC) on University Staff Schools, which was given on Monday, 5th December, 2016.

It further noted that both the Federal and State Governments were still owing the arrears of Earned Allowances derived from the FGN/SSANU 2009 Agreement and that as a renegotiation of the Union’s Agreement was in the offing, the arrears of what was being owed should be paid.