The State House statement on Thursday February 6, though dated February 3, announcing the removal of Professor Aisha Sani Maikudi as Vice Chancellor of the Yakubu Gowon University, Abuja and of Professor Polycarp Emeka Chigbu from his position as Acting Vice-Chancellor at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka [UNN] contained four noticeable technical errors, as far as I could see.
While Professor Chigbu’s case was not well publicized in the media and I therefore have no information on the events that necessitated it, the resistance by 43 senior professors to Maikudi’s appointment as VC, on grounds that she is very junior and that procedure was violated by the now dissolved GoverningCouncil, was very well publicized in the mainstream and insocial media.
To remove the Vice Chancellor of a Federal University because of serious internal resistance has a precedent. In 1978, when the late Professor Babatunde Kwakwu Adadevoh was appointed Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos [Unilag] during the Obasanjo military era, there was serious crisis in the university because he was said to be a very junior professor at the University’s College of Medicine and many of its professors even taught him. The military government appointed a Visitation Panel, which held sensational public hearings. In the end the panel cleared Adadevoh of all the allegations made against him but still recommended his resignation in order to restore peace on campus.
Obasanjo, in his closing weeks as military Head of State, did not act on the report but handed it over to President Shehu Shagari. Shagari then wrote to Adadevoh and asked him to resign and report to the Head of the Federal Civil Service “for redeployment elsewhere in the public service.” Adadevoh wrote back to Shagari and said since the Visitation Panel did not find him guilty, he will not resign. Shagari then gave him an ultimatum of December 31, 1979 to resign. He didn’t, so in the NTA Network News that evening, a Cabinet Office statement said, “President Shehu Shagari, in his capacity as Visitor to the University of Lagos, has removed” Adadevoh as VC of Unilag.
Maikudi was removed for essentially the same reason, to restore peace to the campus, even though it was also alleged that procedure was violated by the now dissolved Governing Council in her appointment. Noticeably however, there was no Visitation Panel to probe the allegations, so we will never know what exactly happened. Secondly, President Tinubu did not ask her to resign, as Shagari did to Adadevoh, nor was she given an ultimatum to resign, as far as we know.
Finally, the State House statement said “President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has announced significant leadership changes at several federal universities… At Yakubu Gowon University, dissolved the entire governing council and relieved Professor Aisha Sani Maikudi of her duties as Vice-Chancellor.”
As President, not as Visitor? The President is Visitor to all Federal Universities and it is in that capacity that he could remove a Vice Chancellor under its statutes. Where are the old civil servants, the old legal hands and the old presidentialcommunicators to advise the President properly in this matter, as old man Shehu Shagari was very well advised in a similar matter?
