Wanted: Vent for the Nigerian University system to breathe

On February 6, 2025, the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, removed the fraudulently installed Vice Chancellor of the University of Abuja (renamed Yakubu Gowon University), Prof. Aisha Maikudu and also dissolved the entire Governing Council, then led by Air Vice Marshal Saddiq Ismaila Kaita (rtd). This was good news, the type of which is becoming increasingly rare in the Nigerian federal university system.

For any current and fair-minded observer of recent events in the Nigerian universities, the surprise is not that this happened. On the contrary, many wondered why it took so long to happen. Given the anomie that has pervaded our nation state, perhaps there may be people who are pleasantly surprised that it even happened at all. Never mind that an army of jobbers is shouting blue murder and adducing all manner of excuses as to why she should have been allowed to stay on the job.

How a person with two years of experience as a professor could appeal to a Governing Council can only define the character or lack thereof of the Governing Council and, in particular its leadership, given the larger-than-life role of Pro-Chancellors in the process of appointment of Vice Chancellors. Now, this is a country where being removed from office is considered enough punishment irrespective of the misdemeanor. Were it to be otherwise, there should have been a commission of enquiry to attempt to establish how this came about in the first place. Given what happened at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, where a person of doubtful academic pedigree was appointed and then removed as Vice Chancellor, yet no commission was empaneled to find out what happened, expectation of a probe of the University of Abuja issue has become quite remote.

The same situation applies to the University of Nigeria. From the moment of his arrival as Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council, it was obvious that like Greg Mbadiwe in Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, General Ike Nwachukwu had come to UNN to carry out the wish of whoever nominated him to the position.

Even before the Senate and congregation of the university elected their representatives to the Council, it had become obvious that the external members were working at cross-purposes with one another. General Nwachukwu wanted, by all means, to install Prof. Bond Anyaehie, a Professor of Human Physiology, as the substantive Vice Chancellor of the university. To accommodate this person whose sibling is the Chief-of-Staff to Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State, the advert for the position of Vice Chancellor of the University called for prospective candidates to have spent eight instead of 10 years on the rank of professor. Standard was thus reduced just to accommodate a particular candidate.

This was without regards to the fact that UNN is a university with over 350 professors in its senate, a substantial number of which have been in the rank for over 10 years. How General Nwachukwu expected his (and his backer’s) candidate to emerge as the Vice Chancellor and earn the respect of his colleagues in the senate was obviously not a consideration.

The General also refused or failed to learn from the avoidable and long-term mess at Nnamdi Azikiwe University. That otherwise calm and consistently growing university has been sent into a tailspin resulting in a gradual entry into a state of suspended animation, all because persons without quality knowledge of the operations of universities, and who have zero regards for ethics, were undeservedly made to get involved.

But it is not yet uhuru for the University of Nigeria. The cloud remains heavily seeded and a major down-pour remains imminent, unless commonsense prevails. There are indications that General Nwachukwu got shoved away because the Governor Peter Mba of Enugu State has developed an interest in who becomes the next Vice Chancellor of the university. Being the biggest federal presence in his state, the vice chancellorship of the university is of understandable interest, particularly after the last 10 horrible years during which the university has all but kissed the dust. While this is well within the rights of the governor, what is confounding is why an acclaimed technocrat and pro-merit like him would want a former Secretary to the Enugu State Government and one time Director of South East Governors’ Forum, to become the Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria.

The person in question left the University of Nigeria when it became clear to him that he could not make the professorial rank at the university on account of its tough and rigorous requirement for academic advancement. He went to the Enugu State University (ESUT) where he deployed the muscle of the state government to secure direct appointment to the rank of professor with less than 10 articles in learned and peer reviewed journals.

Following the completion of his tour of duty as Secretary to the Enugu State Government, he returned to ESUT where the muscle of state was once more deployed to ensure that he got elected unopposed to the deanship of the Faculty of Law.

It was in an attempt to accommodate characters such as this and others propped up by politicians that the Council of General Nwachukwu failed to apply rigour in the shortlisting of candidates for the interviews that would have commenced on February 12, 2025, for appointment of Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. What, for God’s sake, was the council hoping to achieve in listing 23 professors for interview, while assigning a weight of 60 per cent rather than the NUC advisory minimum of 70 per cent to CV score? That amounts to lowering standards at a time we are crying about the abysmal fall in standards of virtually everything in this country.

If there is somewhere where standards should be left sacrosanct, it is the Nigerian academic environment. This is because this is the environment where an impact, positive or adverse, affects every other factor of production, living and societal progress. Lowered standards at the university level, particularly when it affects the selection of its leadership and management is dangerous. Unless we no longer believe in the importance of our nation’s future, we should avoid acts that could present the country as playing children’s games with the academic and management integrity of the University of Nigeria and by extension, the Nigerian university system at large.

Thank God for the intervention of the Minister of Education. Were it not for this, the University of Nigeria, long suffering from several years of misadministration, was being primed to go into long convulsion with the appointment of a vice chancellor who could not hope to command the respect of colleagues.

May the Honourable Minister remain honourable in his oversight of the universities, and in particular the University of Nigeria, with all the debilitating management challenges it has suffered over the past many years. This university remains too important systemically to be allowed to collapse into a crisis.

While politicians, in the spirit of town and gown collaboration, remain free to have interest in what happens in the universities, they must also allow merit to have a firm place in this increasingly evaporating oasis of sanity in Nigeria. It remains largely unclear what their interests in the universities are. While some persons believe they are processing for who would conduct elections for them, others believe it is all about businesses, especially contracts from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).

Whatever the interests might be, this new generation of political leaders are not helping to build the Nigerian university system. Their behaviours suggest they are destroying rather than building Nigerian universities. And as they say in street lingo, they should please let the universities breathe!
• Uwaezuoke, a public affairs commentator, wrote from Enugu