In my column last week, I dismissed as a storm in tea kettle, the public outrage which followed President Muhammadu Buhari’s February sack of the councils and vice chancellors of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) and of the 12 federal universities ex-President Goodluck Jonathan established in the run-up to the 2011 general election.
As if to prove me wrong, the following day, President Buhari was widely reported to have gone back on the sack and apologised for not going about it the right way in a remark at a meeting of his party’s National Executive Council at its headquarters.
A civil society organisation, the Coalition of Civil Society Group (CCSG), which I dismissed as “dubious” because of its reputation of being available for hire, had led the attack on Buhari’s decision and even gone on to sue him. Its main focus, however, was the sack of the vice chancellor of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Professor Vincent Tenebe, who had managed to get himself a two-year extension from its council last May, ahead of the expiry of his five-year term which ended last October.
News report of Buhari’s reversal credited him with saying: “We gave a blanket order which we had to rescind when we said all boards are suspended or dissolved. We had to go back and lick our vomit in terms of universities’ councils because we found out that according to their laws, they cannot choose vice chancellors unless the councils sit and interview candidates who want to be VCs.
“So, there is nothing wrong in saying sorry and going back on your decision. So, we said sorry and allow all the universities to continue with their councils. So, please, try to bear with us as we reflect on where we found ourselves.”
Predictably, the CCSG has since seized the President’s apparent apology to sort of crow about how right it was to have criticised his decision. It praised the President for his courage in accepting he was wrong. As a result it has, it said, decided after an emergency meeting of its executive council members to withdraw its suit at the National Industrial Court (NIC/ABJ/64/2016) filed against the President and the Federal Ministry of Education.
“Nigerians,” it concluded, “are watching and anxiously waiting to see this open apology made by you come into fruition because much is expected of this government.”
However, before it rolls out its drums in celebration of its success, it should tarry a while because its victory may be more apparent than real, certainly as far as the case of the NOUN vice chancellor, its principal interest, is concerned.
The day Buhari reportedly reversed himself, I received a call from Professor Auwalu Yadudu, a distinguished constitutional lawyer and academic at Bayero University Kano and an apparent beneficiary of the controversial sack, as the vice chancellor of the Birnin Kebbi University. I was in far away Doha, Qatar, attending this year’s annual congress of the International Press Institute, the global network of editors, publishers and leading journalists for media freedom based in Vienna, Austria.
He had sent a text earlier on my text only number in reaction to my column to explain to me that he had had to decline his appointment because it had “fallen far short of due process” and was “of very questionable legal basis.” Knowing the professor as a man of integrity and knowing how twice he has lost the election for the vice-chancellorship of his university and did not bother to contest a third time even though he was searched for, it got me worried that he would decline an opportunity to become one, especially since the nomination came from our mutual friend, the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu.
I quickly returned Yadudu’s call from a local service provider and he explained to me for close to 15 minutes that, contrary to my position, there were indeed laws setting up the universities. True, he said, ex-President Jonathan’s 12 federal universitiesoperated for almost five years without laws, but he enacted them in the twilight of his administration, apparently to little or no publicity.
As if to add more to my discomfiture, I received a text from Professor Taoheed Adedoja, the pro-chancellor of the Federal University Dutse, last Saturday, a day after my return from Doha, which agreed with Yadudu. Contrary to my assertion in my column, Adedoja said, he had in his possession the law establishing the Dutse university and he is willing to send me a copy. I’ve reproduced the text below.
His text and the other reactions by text and email that I have reproduced below, suggest that I too, like the President, may have got some of my facts wrong even though it is not clear which of his decisions he was referring to in his remarks between the first decision in mid-July last year, which affected only the councils of all federal universities and which he had since reversed, and the second last month, which affected both the councils and vice chancellors of ex-President Jonathan’s 12 universities and NOUN.
Whichever one the President is referring to, I owe my readers an unreserved apology for getting some of my facts wrong, especially regarding the state of origin of some of the new vice chancellors as attested to by some of the texts below. However, I owe no one any apology about my position on NOUN whose vice chancellor got himself a surreptitious two-year extension that has no basis in law, an action that clearly raised questions about the integrity of its council members.
With its record of defending dubious causes as a civil society organisation, one cannot but question CCSG’s cries about wolves. Even then the President should listen to it and hasten to clarify the ambiguity surrounding his apparent apology so that the huge mess he inherited from his predecessor on the 13 universities in question can be properly sorted out.
NATION
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