The root cause of the crisis currently rocking the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, is the suspension of the chairman of the university’s Governing Council, Dr Emeka Enejere, in a most bizarre and unlawful manner reminiscent of what used to obtain during the inglorious era of military rule. To date, the president of Nigeria who is also the visitor to the UNN, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, has not communicated the purported suspension to Enejere as required by the University of Nigeria Act. The supervising minister of education, Nyesom Wike, simply went on air and announced that the chairman had been suspended. The minister of education went further to immediately appoint another person, who has been identified as his lawyer, as the chairman of the Governing Council of the UNN.
It is very clear from what has happened at UNN that all the actions taken by government detract from the fundamental principles of democratic governance at all levels of the polity: first, at the university level; secondly, at the Ministry of Education level; and, most importantly, at the level of the presidency or the federal government. These are symptoms of lawlessness at the highest levels of government. They portend a state-managed descent into totalitarian anarchy where actions are taken purportedly by the president, when, in fact, the perpetrators of the actions are agents peddling his name and office to do the kind of things which detract from the rule of law and democratic governance, as in the case of the UNN, for selfish interests.
In recent times, a number of such actions and decisions have been taken particularly by the Ministry of Education in Nigerian universities. One is tempted to suspect that universities in Nigeria are being used as testing grounds for the emergence of a totalitarian political regime again in Nigeria. Fortunately, the UNN community has responded promptly to the situation as it demands through strikes, protests and demonstrations. But more actions, even judicial, are required to save Nigeria and Nigerian universities.
It is instructive that the purported suspension of Dr Enejere as pro-chancellor and chairman, Governing Council of the UNN, immediately triggered off a series of protests from the entire university community, calling for an immediate reinstatement. The university’s chapters of ASUU, NASU and SSANU under the umbrella of the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of UNN are leading the protests, and they have even issued press releases and interviews to buttress their demand for Enejere’s reinstatement. The alumni association of the university has joined in the protests. Although the vice chancellor of the university, Prof. Bartholomew Okolo, has obnoxiously used the former Governing Council led by Professor Igwe to proscribe the Student Union, because the students are also in staunch support of the reinstatement of Dr Enejere; by January 20, the students were not on campus even though the university has asked them to return to campus. All is not well in UNN yet! A good number of them joined the demonstrations on campus for the reinstatement of Dr Enejere.
The general perception, which has not been controverted, is that the removal of Dr Enejere was because the Enejere-led Governing Council refused to back-pedal from its resolve to release the report of the Petitions Committee set up to look into the over 450 petitions lodged against the vice chancellor by various persons and groups. The university has allegedly become a centre of sleaze, impunity, arbitrariness, and sundry acts of corruption. The use of the various organs and units of administration and university management like the Registry, the Student Union Government, the Alumni Association, faculties, departments, and Senate committees, which the law establishing the university instituted for its smooth running and administration, was jettisoned. Enthroned were reactionary tactics and strategies, including the use of special assistants. One man unilaterally hired and fired staff, both academic and non-academic. He slapped, pushed and openly rebuked staff he did not like and even summarily dismissed any staff who incurred his wrath in any manner or form. He deliberately created a siege mentality in the university and placed everybody under a “sit-down-look” discontented situation. His excesses are unending! People took cover in their homes for fear of their lives because of so many sudden deaths among people who spoke out against abuses, injustice and arbitrariness as well as his associates who were suspected to have vital information on the sleaze and corruption in the system. This is the University of Nigeria that the Dr Emeka Enejere-led Governing Council was constituted to take oversight of.
The UNN Governing Council, after several warnings, suspended the bursar for gross incompetence and dereliction of duties and was poised towards sanitizing the system. But, unknown to the Council, and indeed the general public, the vice chancellor was not alone. The thunder bolt came from the Ministry of Education, the institution that should play a regulatory function.
Over the years, dating back to the Prof. Ndili era as vice chancellor in the early ‘80s, there has existed a cabal in the UNN. The cabal has gained a cult image and status and has become deeply entrenched in the sleaze and corruption in the university. The cabal is made up of individuals within and outside the university who have links with officials in the Federal Ministry of Education and have successively remained the backbone of the cabal.
Nevertheless, the Dr Enejere-led Governing Council of the UNN has already succeeded in the gargantuan task of awakening the lions and lionesses from the pervading culture of silence in the “den” to the countless number of abuses, lawlessness, recklessness, and impunity going on in the UNN, and, most importantly, to the underlying structural linkages involved in the untold sufferings of staff and students of UNN. One would have thought that the federal government, being very well informed about the stuff that Dr Enejere is made of, wanted to make a difference in the UNN Governing Council leadership over these years by leveraging into his modesty and honesty, his populist leadership antecedents and credentials, as well as his political savoir faire. What has so suddenly happened?
The die is now cast! The Joint Action Committee of the university’s workers and labour unions has given the federal government an ultimatum to recall Dr Enejere and to direct the vice chancellor to proceed on his terminal leave which is already due. The unions have already embarked on an indefinite strike. The situation at the University of Nigeria will also serve as a litmus test to determine the seriousness of the federal government in its avowed war against corruption and the electoral promises of the president to promote the rule of law and good governance. Government has an obligation to either implement the recommendations in the report of the Petitions Committee set up the Governing Council or institute a judicial panel of enquiry to unearth the real truth in the current crisis in Nigeria’s premier university. A stitch in time saves nine!
— Uta writes from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka
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