The Coalition of Civil Society Groups has written a protest letter to President Muhammadu Buhari over the sack of the Vice Chancellors of the twelve federal universities established by the Goodluck Jonathan administration and the National Open University of Nigeria, NOUN.
In the petition, the group said that the President's action contravened the provisions of the Universities (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act No.11 of 1993 (as amended) by decree No.25, 1996 and further amended in 2003 and 2012 respectively and other agreements as contained in the 2009 FGN staff union agreement.
They pointed out that four of the twelve new Vice Chancellors were appointed from the Bayero University, Kano in contravention of the Federal Character principle.
“While this does not come as a surprise owing to the influence of one of the Special Advisers to the Minister of Education in orchestrating the appointments of his friends and cronies without following due process, we are, however, concerned about the constitutional breach and the resultant litigation battle this action may cause, which in turn may generate unnecessary distractions to your focused administration.
“While we are not unmindful of the fact that you would have acted on the recommendation of the Minister of Education in approving their removal, it is pertinent to know that in the pursuit of ambition driven by unguided passion and greed, impunity becomes inevitable as the end irrespective of the means is all that matters and in this case, the removal of these Vice Chancellors is the outcome of an unguided passion and greed by the Minister of Education and his Special Adviser.
“The constitution is quite clear on the procedures to be followed in the appointment and disengagement of Vice Chancellors and none of these procedures were followed in the above case.
“The appointment of Vice Chancellors is a tenured appointment, which presupposes that every appointee is expected to serve the prescribed number of years as stipulated by the Acts governing the institutions.”
However, the Secretary-General, Committee of Vice-Chancellors (CVC), Prof Michael Faborode told the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN on Saturday that it is unfair to say that the VCs were sacked since their tenures of office will expire on Feb. 15, 2016.
“The tenure of the vice-chancellors of nine of these universities expires on Feb. 15. It will be unfair to say that they were sacked; they have exhausted their tenure; when your tenure is not renewed; it does not mean you are sacked. I do not know the reasons why the vice-chancellors of the other three universities were affected,” he said.
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