Get Guardian on Google‘A federation university abandoned by its owners’
The question no one in Abuja wants to ask: Who will protect the University of Abuja? Not a rhetorical question. A constitutional question. A moral question. A question of survival.
On June 30, 2025, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, stood at Giri, in Abuja, to commission an access road to the EFCC Academy, and announced to the nation that he had taken 7,000 hectares from the University of Abuja. From 11,000 hectares to 4,000 hectares. In one sentence. At a road commissioning. No court order. No National Assembly debate. No Federal Executive Council memo published. No consultation with the Visitor – the President of the Federal Republic. No consultation with the Minister of Education. No consultation with the National Universities Commission. He said, in his own words: “The University on their own grabbed 11,000 hectares. I said that will not happen. No document, nothing. You see them fencing everywhere, and before you know it, they would have gone to sell our land.” He then directed the Director of Lands to “carve out 4,000 hectares and give to the University” while the rest would be reallocated for other developmental projects. That was 2025. In 2026, we now know what “reallocation” meant.
According to ASUU, University of Abuja branch, despite an interlocutory injunction granted on August 18 by Justice F.E. Mesiri of the Maitama High Court restraining the FCT Minister from entering or encroaching on University land, the Minister went ahead on September 26 to allocate the University land to companies and individuals. ASUU’s chairman, Prof. Sylvanus Ugoh, said it plainly at a press conference in November 2026 titled “Ministerial Encroachment into University of Abuja Land: Some Points to Ponder”: “The act of the FCT Minister is an outright breach and total disregard for the rule of law. And: ASUU UniAbuja will no longer guarantee industrial harmony if the FCT Minister fails to reverse the unlawful taking away of University of Abuja land and allocating it to his friends and cronies.”
So we ask again: Who will protect the University of Abuja? Where is the Minister of Education? Where is the President who is by law the Governor of Abuja? Where is the National Assembly that is the parliament of Abuja? Where are the elected representatives for Abuja? Why is everyone silent on the bastardisation of the Abuja Master Plan? Why is no one holding Wike to account in Abuja? Why is even the mainstream media quiet?
This ‘Inside-Stuff’ reiteration is an attempt to answer, drawing copiously from the earlier commentary of the same columnist titled, “Land Grab: Why Uni-Abuja Needs Presidential Protection” – July 12, 2025.
‘What I wrote in July, 2025 – And why it still matters’
I am not a student activist. I am a public policy journalist, former editor and newspaper executive who has covered Abuja since 1988. In the July 12, 2025 commentary, I made a distinction that most Nigerians have missed – and that is the heart of this crisis. I had once and then posited and tagged the University of Abuja as “the only federation university in the country.” Not just a federal university. Yes, a ‘federation university’. I argued then that the university, renamed Yakubu Gowon University, “shouldn’t be regarded as just a federal university… should be similarly regarded as a federation university that should not be trifled with, in the capital of the federation, Abuja.” Why does that distinction matter? It does because Abuja is not a state. Abuja is the Capital of the Federation comprising 36 states and the capital itself. The President and chief executive of the federation is, according to the organic law of the land, the Governor of the Capital, Abuja. The same constitution allows the President to delegate his gubernatorial powers over Abuja to the FCT Minister, if he so wishes.
Therefore, I wrote that the President is the Visitor to the University of Abuja but that function isn’t delegated to the FCT Minister except by express permission to hold the fort during ceremonies. In other words: Wike is not the Visitor. Wike is not the owner. Wike is not the proprietor. Wike is a delegate – a caretaker – administering a Territory that belongs to all Nigerians. I then warned that the university, “seems to have been abandoned by the stakeholders of the federation that own it.” That abandonment is the story of 2025-2026. I also warned then that the Nigerian print media, “disrespected the Federation University with the way they unjustifiably amplified the description of the university as a ‘land grabber’ without contextual reporting.”
Wike called university leaders “land grabbers”. The media repeated it. No one asked: How can a university created by Federal Government Decree in 1988, allocated land by Federal Government, be a grabber of its own land?
My fact file was simple: The FCT Minister should come under scrutiny over reduction from 11,000 hectares to just 4,000 hectares. Abubakar Sidiq, a policy analyst, had cried out on social media: “Wike has reduced the land of the University of Abuja by 7,000 hectares, leaving the university with 4,000 hectares from the initial 11,000 hectares.” My plea then was presidential protection. Not Wike’s protection. Not FCTA’s protection. ‘Presidential protection’ because only the President, as Visitor and as Governor of Abuja, can override his own delegate. One year later, that protection has not come even as “Sahara Reporters” had given a critical update on rule of a strong man, not the rule of law over the Federation University in Abuja.
‘The Facts: 11,824 Hectares , Not 11,000 – And The Mountain Trick’
Let us establish the facts, because Wike’s narrative depends on confusion. ASUU University of Abuja says the university was established on January 1, 1988, with an initial land allocation of 11,824 hectares to accommodate its long-term academic and infrastructural development. It says: “There is overwhelming documentary evidence showing that this parcel of land was allocated to the University of Abuja.” The Acting Vice Chancellor at the time, Prof. Lar Patricia Manko, said there was no truth in the allegation that the institution was involved in land grabbing. She maintained that the expanse was legitimately given by the Federal Government and the Minister cannot make such unsubstantiated claims. She said the university had plans for agriculture, tourism, research centres, quarters for staff and student hostels.
The Pro-Chancellor, Senator Olanrewaju Tejuoso, went further on “Arise News Television” in July 2025 and was quoted as saying “Of the 4,000 hectares Wike left, 2,000 hectares are mountain. Currently, the University of Abuja has only 2,000 hectares, as the other 2,000 is a mountain,” He added: “Even the 4,000 hectares – 2,000 of it is just mountain. When you fly out of the Abuja airport the mountain you see below is part of the university’s land. Realistically, we now have only 2,000 hectares left for actual development. Maybe Minister Wike should come and take over the mountain and develop it himself.”
Think about it: From 11,824 hectares to 2,000 usable hectares. That is not “retrieval”. That is amputation. That is an 83% cut. And compare to other federal universities: Obafemi Awolowo University has over 13,000 hectares. University of Ilorin has about 15,000 hectares. FUNAAB has about 10,000 hectares. No minister has gone to Ile-Ife or Ilorin to say “you grabbed land, give me 7,000 hectares.” Why is University of Abuja different?
Because University of Abuja is in Abuja and Abuja land is now the most valuable real estate in West Africa. Land in Giri, in Airport Road corridor, is gold. A plot that was N5 million in 2020 is N80 million in 2026. To take 7,000 hectares – 70 million square metres – is to take a future city.
And who gets that future city? According to ASUU, companies and individuals allocated on September 26, in defiance of court order. According to Abuja residents, shopping malls will now litter the place. Malls, estates, private layouts – sprouting on what was meant to be a university town for the federation. This is the bastardisation of the Abuja Master Plan that others and I have warned about. The Master Plan, drawn by International Planning Associates in 1979, designed Abuja as a neutral, centrally-located capital for all Nigerians, with distinct districts, green belts, university zone, institutional zone. The University of Abuja was meant to be the intellectual heartbeat in that plan – not a land bank to be arbitrarily carved for private developers. When you carve a university for malls, you have bastardised the plan.
Where is the Minister of Education?
This is the most embarrassing silence.
The University of Abuja is under the Federal Ministry of Education. The Minister of Education is the supervising minister for all federal universities. He appoints governing councils on the authority of the Vistor . He receives visitation panel reports. He defends university budgets at Federal Executive Council. Yet since June 30, 2025, when Wike announced the seizure, the Minister of Education has not led a delegation to Giri. He has not issued a statement defending his university. He has not gone to the President to say: “Sir, the University of Abuja is being dismantled by your delegate.”
As I noted this in July 2025: “Even education ministers from 1999 till the present haven’t been visiting the University of Abuja. That has been curious and that is why even the current FCT Minister didn’t know that he needed to visit the University of Abuja as unarguably the most important institution in the Territory”. I also noted then that, “since the university was created some 37 years ago, no FCT Minister has intentionally collaborated with Education Minister to build befitting infrastructure that the federation university deserves.”
The silence of the Education Minister is not accidental. It is systemic. In Nigeria’s power structure, the FCT Minister is more powerful than the Education Minister. Wike controls land, controls contracts, controls Abuja’s budget. The Education Minister controls paper. Who will fight Wike for a university? But that is exactly why the Constitution made the President the Visitor. The Education Minister is supposed to be the President’s eyes in the university. If he is blind to the land grab, the President will be blind.
The question must be asked: Is the Minister of Education afraid of Wike? Or has he been told to leave Wike alone?
Meanwhile, I quoted insiders in my later January 2026 piece, “Wike: Portrait of an Untouchable Genius”: ‘Insiders at the Presidential Villa have confirmed that the President would not like to entertain any complaints about Wike. The President is said to be telling all petitioners: “Leave him alone. He is working. He is an achiever. Can’t you see the roads in Abuja?” That is the blind spot. If that is true, then the Education Minister’s silence is not cowardice. It is obedience to a presidential instruction to leave Wike alone.
Where is the President The Governor of Abuja?
This is the constitutional tragedy. Under Section 299 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the FCT is treated as a state, and the President exercises executive powers over it as Governor. The National Assembly exercises legislative powers over it as State Assembly. The President may delegate to a Minister. In other words, Wike is not Governor. Tinubu is Governor. Wike is Tinubu’s delegate. Tinubu can revoke delegation tomorrow morning.Yet Tinubu has not. Why?
*** Let’s continue with how to save the University of Abuja from artful land grabbers.
