The current governance and management situation at the University of Abuja is a painful reflection of the adage that one cannot give what one does not have. The imposition of an unlawful sole administration at the capital city’s premier public university by the Tinubu Presidency has remained a shocking epitome of the resuscitation of the ghost of long-abandoned government-driven impunity and undue interference in the university system, reminiscent of the military era.
Conceived and implemented illegally, the current leadership structure has primarily remained averse to the rule of law, as it is impervious to the university’s much-cherished core values and traditions.
Arising from the circumstances of its birth and imposition, the two-man face of the leadership contraption, the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the one-man Governing Council, Senator Lanre Tejuoso, and the acting Vice-Chancellor, Professor Patricia Manko Lar, have so far only proceeded from one imperial policy flip-flop to another. This seems to have been compounded by the lesser stature and relative inexperience of Professor Lar as the chief driver of the day-to-day management process of a university.
From the outset, let it be stressed that her appointment at the University of Abuja is illegal. The provisions of the extant laws are very clear. She could not have become an acting Vice-Chancellor without being a member of, and nominated by, the University of Abuja Senate. At the same time, after nomination by the Senate, the appointment of a nominated candidate ought to be considered and ratified by the University of Abuja Governing Council.
The sudden dissolution of the Governing Council should not have tampered with the due process because there was a serving Deputy Vice-Chancellor who the laws recognise and made ample provisions for a seamless, lawful transition within the confines of the institution. Appointing Professor Patricia Lar beyond the confines of the law is a draconian imposition that denies her the legitimacy to preside over the affairs of the University of Abuja, including presiding over its statutory bodies such as the Senate and Congregation. No amount of braggadocio or intimidation by the government and its officials, or sophistry and subservient genuflection of the few self-centred elements within the system, can wish away this reality. Either now or in the future.
With her ineligible status continuously interrogated and berated by the concerned majority members of the University of Abuja community and the general public, the helmswoman imposed from the University of Jos in contravention of the existing laws, has chosen to rely more on political expediency laced with impunity to pursue her yet unclear mission at the Institution.
Because she was suddenly catapulted to her current position following the unilateral dissolution of the Governing Council and unlawful removal of the 7th substantive Vice-chancellor of the University, Professor Aisha Sani Maikudi, Professor Lar appears to be afflicted by the arrogance of a mint-fresh power, while at the same time drawn back by the poor knowledge and exposure to the rules and nitty-gritty of university governance and management. This is a sad and tragic scenario, given that the university system is essentially law-driven, which ought to have no allowance for a trial-and-error method or political gimmick in management.
The first infraction committed was the spurious claim that the sole administration was in place to restore sanity to the University of Abuja. Faced with an instant legitimacy crisis upon assumption of duty, the two imposed administrators were quick to variously underscore this claim at every turn, and in their continuous interactions with several stakeholders. However, nothing is further from the truth.
Notwithstanding the usual post-transition noise, claims, and counterclaims by various groupings over the emergence of Professor Aisha Maikudi as the new Vice-Chancellor, there was no crisis or any sign of instability in the University at the time. It is known that the day the government announced the sweeping leadership changes that heralded the sole administration, the University of Abuja held the most colourful matriculation ceremony for its new students.
And the Governing Council’s Finance and General Purposes Committee was reportedly meeting when news of the dissolution of the Council and removal of the Vice-Chancellor filtered into the Campus. So, it is objectionable and disrespectful to claim legitimacy for the imposed sole administration at the altar of a non-existent crisis and instability at the University of Abuja.
The sole administration has also engendered a needless identity crisis for the institution. In an apparent eagerness to please her sponsors and some obvious geopolitical interests, but without the tactical discipline and right focus, Professor Lar has only succeeded in muddying up the institution’s name. The Federal Government may have pronounced a change in name from the University of Abuja to Yakubu Gowon University some weeks before her illegal appointment to head the institution in acting capacity, but that is not the end. There is the due process of executive initiation of an executive bill to the National Assembly for necessary legislation before the assent by Mr. President and subsequent gazetting to perfect the process. However, without this legal backing, the acting Vice-Chancellor has been compelling an immediate change of the name in communication both within and beyond the university, with the attendant palpable confusion regarding the current official name of the university.
Some stakeholders refer to the institution as the University of Abuja, now known as Yakubu Gowon University, while others refer to it as Yakubu Gowon University, formerly known as the University of Abuja. An ‘ivory tower’ worth its status should not be caught in a vortex of such infantile identity crisis!
Furthermore, following interactions with various stakeholders and familiarisation visits to all the Faculties and the College of Health Sciences, the acting Vice-Chancellor proceeded to embark on several crucial administrative actions and changes, some of which have been strange and shocking, to say the least.
She not only created and made appointments into strange and unknown positions of senior special assistants, but she also opted to sign the appointment letters herself, contrary to the norm and tradition of the system by which the Registrar performs the function. The new appointees are fellow professors serving as her aides, but with the unusual clout and power to take over the duties and responsibilities of Deputy Vice-Chancellors in academic affairs, student affairs, other administrative duties, and research.
Perhaps acting the role of both approving and conveying officer by Professor Lar in respect of these bizarre appointments enables her to personalise it to her tenure and save the University inglorious future identification with such abnormality. In the same way, the three professors will have to take responsibility for their role in the desecration of the administrative process of the University, whatever the short-term benefits accruing to them.
Relatedly, the acting Vice-Chancellor undertook in one fell swoop the appointment of new Directors and other heads of the institution’s academic and non-academic centres and units. Standing over sixty (60), the new appointments seemed lopsided and divisive, without regard to the makeup, national spread of staff and student composition of the University, and its core values projecting the pursuit of unity and scholarship. Attention was not given to the specific mandates and special interest needs of some centres and units in making new appointments to head them.
Consequently, there are currently several square pegs in round holes in the administrative setup under the sole administration. If not addressed and reversed, this may set a new inelegant precedent of administrative changes and postings for the University. Overall, the sweeping administrative changes undertaken by Professor Lar were uncalled for by a supposed chief executive with less than four months in office.
It would seem that for selfish reasons, some exploited the acting Vice-Chancellor’s inexperience at that level, naivety, and her predilection for her base sentiments to influence changes that could easily be made by any incoming administration with a five-year tenure. Besides, the seeming religious colouration of the new appointments and postings has engendered a rejection by a few conscientious nominees to the consternation and embarrassment of the acting Vice-Chancellor.
The most egregious infraction was the recent announcement of the promotion of some academic staff to the professorial rank at a regular meeting of the University Senate. According to a statement posted on the University’s official Facebook page by the Directorate of Information and University Relations, the promotion of twenty (20) staff to full professor and twenty-five (25) staff to associate professor was declared by the acting Vice-Chancellor.
It was reported that the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council approved the promotions pending ratification by the Governing Council after it is constituted. One is not happy to be a harbinger of bad news, but everything is wrong with this move by Professor Lar, and it cannot be sustained. Without doubt, there is no Governing Council in place at the University of Abuja, and it is the only statutory organ that can approve the promotions. The Pro-Chancellor, who was reported to have approved the promotion, has no power or locus to do so. He is a presiding officer, and even when the Council is fully in place, it can only invoke its power to approve the promotion when it satisfies the other statutory requirement of quorum for its meeting.
The added role of the Appointments and Promotions Committee (A&PC) is also currently absent. Ordinarily, the issue of the non-academic staff in the Registry and Bursary awaiting interviews and similar upgrade to their terminal ranks would have been raised had all the statutory requirements for the exercise been met by the University. But as things stand, the so-called promotions announced by Professor Lar remain illegal, null, and void. Career promotions in the university system are a serious endeavour that should not be subjected to a political gimmick or reduced to an avenue for self-aggrandisement by a few unconscionable characters!
It is surprising that the bulk of those who stoutly opposed the promotions approved last year by the Minister of Education at the behest of the President and Visitor to the University in the absence of the Governing Council, are now keeping quiet and pretending that nothing is wrong with the conspicuous bastardisation of the promotion process of the University of Abuja.
It is worth recalling that this was one of the five issues that led to the 82-day strike by the academic staff under the auspices of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). Yet, less than a year later, an illegally imposed administration has the temerity to hastily and selectively announce promotions of some staff without having conformed to the statutory requirements and due process involved.
Perhaps the dubious scheme has been designed to satisfy the interests of certain forces around the sole administration, which time will tell. Whatever it is, the promotions would have to be done the proper way from where the last Council stopped, even as the effective date of the promotions at the professorial rank would not be affected in any way.
Lastly, on the whole, it would seem that the imposition of the sole administration at the University of Abuja has been a study of how not to run a university with a presumed self-governing status properly. The government, taking away with the left hand the autonomy it has given to the university with the right hand, has only put it on the path toward governance and management perdition.
This has given birth to several inequities already highlighted. Others to mention, even in passing, include the seeming attempt to impose the new Bursar’s membership in the Senate and increasing consideration of non-academic, finance and management-related matters at its meetings.
All these combined can only lower the standard of its operations and diminish the image and integrity of the institution among the community of Nigerian universities. The only viable option for the University of Abuja is to restore order and the rule of law by reinstating the dissolved Governing Council and the substantive Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sani Maikudi.
Kwairanga is of the Sultan Maccido Institute for Peace & Legislative Studies, University of Abuja.
