By Goke Odebunmi
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) should be really worried, if not outraged, by the series of assaults on its cherished ideals by the Honourable Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, in particular, and the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration in general.
The latest of these glaring negations and crude violations of ASUU principles and positions (duly negotiated and agreements sealed with government), was the removal of the Vice Chancellor of the University of Abuja and unilateral appointment of someone outside the university as Acting Vice Chancellor, in stark and flagrant contravention of the law, and in a manner reminiscent of military authoritarian juntas.
Earlier on, the government had dissolved councils of all Federal universities and neglected to reconstitute them for 13 months (thereby causing lots of problems and instigating crises within the universities), had foot-dragged in commencing renegotiation with the university-based unions, had equally foot-dragged on the issue of the much-vilified Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), and the brazen attempt to undermine, then eventually scrap TETFUND, etc.
Recall that after grueling struggles, spanning about two decades, ASUU successfully won a major concession from government in the form of administrative autonomy for the ivory towers, as envisioned and encapsulated in the Universities (Miscellaneous) Act.
A most significant development as contained in the Act is that the power to appoint and remove vice chancellors is now vested in the individual universities’ Councils rather than the Visitor, and since early 2000s that has been the practice. But in recent times, under the Tinubu Administration, the power of the universities’ council to hire and fire is being threatened and sometimes taken away.
The notorious University of Abuja example is a classic case. A properly constituted Council appointed a vice chancellor (the Education Minister even reportedly gave them a December 31, 2025 deadline to do just that). Granted that controversies, claims, and counterclaims trailed the process. The proper way to handle the matter shouldn’t have been to abruptly and cavalierly dissolve the Council and sack the vice chancellor.
That clearly violates the Act and portrays the government as unserious, if not confused. The Minister, acting through the Visitor, should have caused an investigation to be conducted (to look into the claims of the so-called 43 aggrieved professors and the 109 senate members that countered them).
The resolutions of the most recent regular meeting of the senate should have also been considered. Most importantly, all individuals and groups involved in the saga should have been heard (including the Council and the embattled vice chancellor), before Government acted without using the instrumentality of the Act and other relevant laws. This way, laws and due process would have been followed and respected, fairness guaranteed, and the system strengthened.
The way the matter was handled was untidy, hasty (reeks of premeditation), unjust, one-sided, ultra vires, and almost certainly incapable of solving the problem. Expect the crisis at the University of Abuja to mutate, fester, and linger. The fissures of division are likely to widen, the schism will deteriorate, and peace will elude the school because the matter was spectacularly mishandled.
The biggest blunder of all was appointing an Acting Vice Chancellor from outside the university against the expressed provisions of the Act establishing the university. To compound matters, apart from the fact that Prof. Patricia Manko knows next to nothing about the University of Abuja, she lacks the requisite experience and antecedent to preside over a cauldron of crisis like University of Abuja – reading through her resume’ shows that the only administrative responsibilities she ever held was heading a department, before being appointed a director of a non-academic centre.
One prays that she wasn’t deliberately picked and foisted to worsen the problem, rather than solve it, or because she happens to fit into the bill of someone that can be used, hijacked or manipulated in the service of an agenda.
It is not too late for the government to reconsider its actions, retrace its steps, and make the right decisions as par the University of Abuja. On the other hand, it is incumbent on ASUU to see the handwriting clearly on the wall: the Tinubu administration is systematically and determinedly reversing the gains of its hard-fought struggles. The union cannot afford to fold its arms and watch as its cherished legacies are being undermined, debased, and obliterated.
Dr. Goke Odebunmi writes from Federal University Lokoja, Kogi State.
