Uduma Assumes Office As NOUN Vice-Chancellor

The new Vice-Chancellor of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Prof. Uduma Oji Uduma, has identified six priority areas for his administration as he assumed office on Wednesday.

This was contained in a press statement issued by Dr Ibrahim Sheme, the Director of Media and Publicity at NOUN.

Uduma listed the priority areas as strengthening study centres, enhancing learner support systems, improving ICT and digital infrastructure, ensuring the integrity of e-examinations, promoting staff welfare, and sustaining quality assurance and accreditation standards.

He made the remarks at a ceremony where his predecessor, Prof. Olufemi Ayinde Peters, handed over the leadership baton to him as Vice-Chancellor for the next five years.

Uduma, a Professor of Philosophy and former Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) of NOUN, assumed office as the sixth Vice-Chancellor of the institution.

His emergence as Vice-Chancellor was first announced by the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of the university, Malam Isa Yuguda, during a press conference held on 10 October 2025 in Abuja.

In his assumption of office speech, titled “Rising to Build: Stewardship, Access, and Excellence for a New NOUN Era,” Uduma described his appointment as a “solemn national trust” and a call to purposeful service.

According to him, “Leadership is not ornamental; it is functional. It is not a posture of arrival, but a posture of responsibility.”

While reaffirming NOUN’s mandate, the new Vice-Chancellor emphasised the university’s core mission of democratising access to quality higher education and removing barriers of geography, age, employment status, gender and circumstance.

In his valedictory speech, Prof. Peters appreciated the NOUN Council, Senate, principal officers and staff who stood by him throughout his five-year tenure.

“I am profoundly grateful to God Almighty for raising me when hope seems lost. God has been good to Femi Peters,” he added.

He commended his successor for visiting various directorates, units and study centres during the transition period, noting that this had prepared him to hit the ground running.