UniAbuja VC Appointment: Crisis Looms As Selection Board Members Walk Out Of Meeting Amid Moves To Impose ‘Unqualified’ Acting VC Maikudi
UniAbuja VC Appointment: Crisis Looms As Selection Board Members Walk Out Of Meeting Amid Moves To Impose ‘Unqualified’ Acting VC Maikudi
UniAbuja VC Appointment: Crisis Looms As Selection Board Members Walk Out Of Meeting Amid Moves To Impose ‘Unqualified’ Acting VC Maikudi
The University Senate has scheduled a meeting for today, Tuesday, to replace Senate members who allegedly refused to endorse a manipulated selection joint board.
A crisis is brewing at the University of Abuja in Nigeria over plans to appoint Prof. Aisha Maikudi as the substantive Vice-Chancellor, SaharaReporters has learned.
The University Senate has scheduled a meeting for today, Tuesday, to replace Senate members who allegedly refused to endorse a manipulated selection joint board.
According to sources who spoke to SaharaReporters on Tuesday morning, the move is seen as a desperate attempt to impose the Acting VC Prof. Maikudi as the VC, taking advantage of the holiday season when many Senate members are away.
According to the sources, the Governing Council is divided, with some members feeling that Prof. Maikudi lacks the necessary experience, having only about two years of professional experience under her belt.
Prof. Maikudi, however, has an impressive academic background, having obtained her LLB from the University of Reading and LLM from the London School of Economics & Political Science. She joined the University of Abuja in 2008 and rose through the ranks to become a professor in 2022.
SaharaReporters also learned that Tuesday’s meeting earlier scheduled for 9 a.m. was later shifted to 11:30 a.m.
‘Moves To Impose Acting VC’
One of the sources said: “There is a scheduled crisis in the University. A Senate meeting was earlier scheduled for 9 a.m. today to replace Senate members who refused to endorse the manipulated selection committee desperate to impose the acting Vice Chancellor Aisha Maikudi on everyone.
“The crisis-ridden Governing Council feels she is not qualified to run having only two years of professorial experience.
“The desperate people want to take advantage of holidays when most Senate members have travelled to hold a kangaroo session on Christmas Eve to replace internal members of Senate of the of the Governing Council of UNIABUJA to select Aisha Maikudi.”
“The desperados want to impose her at all cost to continue with a very corrupt administration in UNIABUJA,” the source added.
The 10th Governing Council of the University of Abuja led by Air Vice-Marshal Saddiq Ismaila Kaita (Rtd) on July 5, 2024 approved the appointment of Maikudi as acting VC of the University.
“There are seven days left and the chairman has come out with what he called a timeline, asking people to come for interview on Saturday and Sunday during this festive period.”
The source explained that efforts to get the Council chairman to provide any explanation for the rush were rebuffed.
“The Council asked him why and he didn’t provide any explanation to them. They also asked him for copies of the letter from the education ministry but he failed to produce it. He didn’t tell the Council members who signed the letter, if it was the minister or not.
“So they are just dropping the name of the minister. The minister is an organised person, he cannot interfere with the work of the Council. There are five members on the Council appointed by the federal government, three of them are from the northern region and two are from the South – one is from the South West and the other is from the South East.
“In terms of the manipulation, the chairman put all the three northerners in the selection board and dropped the two who are from the South. He ignored the federal character. This is not the first time they would do that.
“The joint board of Senate and Council are supposed to do the shortlisting and arrange the one they have shortlisted and send them to the DSS for clearance before the interview. And what the chairman did yesterday was to rush those people to come and when they came, there the two professors who represented the Senate said what he did was wrong. All the shortlisting should be done by this board not the committee of the Council.
“They were arguing and there was a man from the ministry of education who has been compromised. So at the end of the day, the two professors representing the Senate walked out of that meeting and they wrote that they walked out because of the reckless disregard for due process and rule of law.”
SaharaReporters learnt that the two dons who walked are Prof K. M. Waziri and Prof. Rosemary Udeazo.
“The chairman of the Council is from Katsina, the acting Vice Chancellor is from Katsina and the immediate past Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council is from Katsina and he is the father of the current acting VC,” the source added.
“So they want to manipulate the whole thing and rush it so that they are done by December 31. They don’t want to respect religion; they want to conduct interviews on Saturday and Sunday. So the place stinks and they are threatening people’s lives there.”
When contacted, Prof. Waziri confirmed that he and Prof. Udeazo – who were elected by the Senate – walked out when the council chairman denied them the right to perform their functions as prescribed by law.
