In anticipation of the resolution of the current legal and administrative quagmire created for the University of Abuja by the Tinubu Administration, attention has continued to focus on the dramatis personae behind the intriguing leadership saga. Lured and trapped by an orchestrated cacophony of noise by some sore losers over the outcome of the transition process that produced the University’s 7th substantive Vice-Chancellor in the person of Professor Aisha Sani Maikudi, and purportedly acting to solve a make-believe “transition crisis”, the government in one fell swoop, unlawfully sacked the entire governing authorities of the institution. Without recourse to the extant laws of the University and due process, it imposed a one-man Governing Council and acting Vice-Chancellor to operate for six months in place of the sacked officials. With the imposed sole administration driven by Professor Patricia Manko Lar in place, the University has remained in the news for several reasons.
One is the incongruity between the imposed leadership structure and the existing laws and practices of the entire university system.
Concerned stakeholders, policymakers, and lawmakers, including technocrats and members of the organized unions in the Nigerian University system, have continued to condemn and reject the idea that the University of Abuja is currently governed and managed by a combination of a one-man Council and an illegally imposed acting Vice-Chancellor. It is an aberration, and the government has no justification or locus standi to impose it. Two, is the spate of unbecoming actions being taken by the externally-appointed acting Vice-Chancellor, including the appointment of so-called senior special assistants, who effectively replaced the statutory Deputy Vice-Chancellors. This has not only raised eyebrows but also continued to draw attention to the inequities unfolding at the University.
Thirdly, the rumblings within the ranks of academia have continued unabated, resulting in members operating at cross purposes. While the majority are miffed and opposed to the imposed sole administration, the vocal minority operating as G44 members of the University Senate appear receptive to it and have even publicly praised the President, contrary to the stance of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) that condemned the erosion of the University’s autonomy. The G44 members have also embraced the acting Vice-Chancellor, leading to most of them being appointed to new positions.
Key members of the group may be gearing up to join the next race for the appointment of a new substantive Vice-Chancellor. Yet members of the group are in serious conflict with various forces, including their union at both the local and national levels. This conflict with ASUU threatens to snowball into a major crisis that affects the solidity of their union and overall corporate harmony of the system, as it may extend beyond the confines of the University of Abuja. Already, a few members of the group have been queried by the local branch of the union. This action is alleged to have been endorsed by the national body of ASUU.
The formation of the G44, or G43 to some, can be traced to the agitations against the now dissolved Governing Council over the appointment of the 7th substantive Vice-Chancellor of the University. It emerged around the aspiration of one of the leading candidates who applied for the position. When faced with the prospect of failure in the race, the financially endowed candidate deployed his resources and rallied around his close friends and allies while procuring the support of several others for his cause. It all started after he deployed the same financial clout in an unprecedented manner to establish alliances that ensured the victory of his main ally in the election of Senate representatives to the Joint Council and Senate Selection Board for the appointment of Vice-Chancellor. The man is known to have acquired a strong financial muscle owing to his previously heading a very lucrative federal government agency that has attracted the interest of the anti-graft agencies in the country.
The initial plan of the G44 was to obstruct and scuttle the entire process of the selection and appointment of the new substantive Vice-Chancellor, which effectively got underway in early December 2024. Their target was to ensure that the process was not concluded before the expiration of the tenure of the then acting Vice-Chancellor, Professor Aisha Sani Maikudi, on 4th January 2025. With the extant laws not providing for tenure extension in acting capacity, their calculation was to get their anointed person in the Faculty of Education appointed as the new acting Vice-Chancellor for another six months. After which, they would manoeuvre to commence the entire transition process afresh. However, their evil plan was dead on arrival due to the resilience and determination of most internal members of the Council, coupled with the Ministerial directive to the Council Chairman to conclude the process within the six months allowed by the law.
Consequently, the Council, amidst the cacophony of noise and infantile shenanigans of the group, worked extremely hard to produce and announce the 7th substantive Vice-Chancellor on 31st December 2024. Of the four applicants from within the University shortlisted and invited for interview, two, namely Professor Sani Mashi and Professor Clement Alawa, declined to attend. While Professor Sule Magaji and Professor Aisha Maikudi attended with the latter emerged victorious. It was shocking that the second candidate did not attend the interview, having appeared on the Main Campus ready on the day of the interview, and without a previous link of encounter with anti-graft agencies.
Following the announcement of Professor Aisha Sani Maikudi as the new substantive Vice-Chancellor by the Governing Council led by Air Vice Marshal Sadiq Kaita, all hell was let loose by the G44 members. Acting in concert with the representative of the South West on the Council with extensive connections in the Nigerian media, the group was criss-crossing media houses and escalating the media war, especially against the Council and its Chairman. The external member involved in the group’s media campaign was aggrieved because he was allegedly not made a member of the Selection Board by the Council. He also received the support of an inexperienced and relatively naive member representing the South East. The group also wrote and submitted petitions to government officials, including the President and the Minister of Education, as well as to the ASUU. In all these efforts, the group variously alleged that the selection process was flawed and marked by contravention of the extant laws and due process. However, as of then and to date, the group has been unable to point out any of the specific provisions of the relevant laws for the appointment of Vice-Chancellors at the University that have been breached. The two laws are the University of Abuja Act and the Universities (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment) Act 2003, No. 1 of 2007.
That explains why it has remained unexplainable and perplexing, the actions taken by the government at the University of Abuja. Even the G44 members are at a loss for what to make of the present strange and absurd scenario in which they have lost the mantle of leadership to an imposed acting Vice-Chancellor from the University of Jos, and they cannot equally predict what will happen next. It is instructive that the ASUU National President, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, has now come out to condemn in very strong terms the unbecoming practice of both Mr. President and the Minister of Education listening and yielding to complaints of aggrieved parties arising from the selection process in the universities. Given that the extant laws are very clear on who can appoint or remove a Vice-Chancellor for the universities. He rightly maintained that failed or aggrieved candidates seeking to be Vice-Chancellors in the universities ought to go to court to seek redress, just as the politicians have been doing so.
Since the G44 has celebrated its contributions to undoing the University of Abuja’s lawful leadership architecture and officers by expression of appreciation to President Tinubu in an advertorial in the Vanguard of February 18 2025, it may be necessary for the public to know and appreciate the composition, profile and raison d’etre of the group’s membership. That may be a story for another day. What one can say at the moment, though, is that the members of the group are, in the main, united by the politics of envy and hate against the young, beautiful, dashing, vibrant, and digital Professor Aisha Sani Maikudi. Until now, the youngest professor of law not only at the University of Abuja but the entire country, she possessed credentials that most of the older and analogous professors in the group can only dream of. It bears restating that she held various roles, including Head of Department, Deputy Dean, Director, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, and Acting Vice-Chancellor, before being appointed the 7th substantive Vice-Chancellor.
A cursory look at the list of membership of the G44 reveals an amalgam of academics with varying career trajectories and professional antecedents coming together to portray the University of Abuja in a negative light. The group parade former Deputy Vice-Chancellors, Deans and Directors, as well as Heads of Departments quite alright. This is in addition to other non-descript individuals and those with records of past misdemeanours. All of these initially professed to agree and key into the project of producing an internal candidate as the new Vice-Chancellor, but immediately backtracked once Professor Maikudi emerged victorious from the race. Now, with the ousted Vice-Chancellor seemingly out of the way, some of them have once more started canvassing the idea of rooting for an internal candidate to emerge as the next Vice-Chancellor. Who is fooling whom?
What is quite clear now is that the emergence of Professor Maikudi as Vice-Chancellor has exposed the iniquity of the prevailing politics of hate and the elevation of political opportunism at the University of Abuja. Two recent happenings clearly illustrate this. The first was the failure of the G44 members to appear and defend their two petitions before a visiting fact-finding team sent by the national secretariat of ASUU. This only proved that their agitations were merely hate-driven and not based on any solid grounds. All other stakeholders engaged by the visitation team, including the branch officials of the union, the unjustly removed Vice-Chancellor, and members of the dissolved Governing Council, interfaced with it. Secondly, in the sweeping administrative changes undertaken by the acting Vice-Chancellor, almost all the newly appointed Directors belong to the G44 camp. This not only served to justify their claim that the imposed sole administration was a divine intervention, but it was also the end in itself, with some of them even resenting their assigned positions for not being commensurate with their efforts “in the struggle”. Indeed, the anti-Vice-Chancellor Aisha Maikudi crusade was not about the system but undoing her to get ‘settled’.
However, contrary to the expectation of the G44 mercenaries, the prospects of light appearing at the end of the tunnel for what someone has aptly described as the “occupied University of Abuja” are high. This is simply because the laws, due process, imperative of good governance and management, as well as the desire for a good verdict of history and posterity for the Tinubu Administration, eloquently favour the reinstatement of the dissolved Governing Council and ousted Vice-Chancellor, Professor Aisha Sani Maikudi. It is up to President Tinubu to decide to make a date with history by reversing the unlawful actions.
~ Dr Osaze is an Associate Professor of Comparative History, University of Abuja.
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