Association of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, AVCNU, Sunday cautioned university unions calling for the sack of Vice Chancellors of Federal University of Technology Akure, FUTA and Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta, FUNAB, not to destroy what universities stand for.
In a statement issued by AVCNU in Abuja and signed by Secretary-General, Michael Faborode.
He said this is not the time to fight to finish but the time get Nigeria Universities back on track.
According to him, “It is the contention of AVCNU that the time has come for us to get Nigerian universities back on track, and we plead with the university unions not to unwittingly destroy the fabric of our universities, which indeed is their means of livelihood.
“There is a tide in the affairs of men and women which when taken at the high tide leads on to fortune, omitted, all voyages of life are bound in shallows and miseries…”. Universities have enough internal organs and systems to regulate their procedures. The greatest challenge before Nigerian universities today is to make themselves relevant to the daily problems, lives, and expectations of Nigerians – solutions to poverty, hunger, poor health care system, a failing economy, and disappearing goodness of life. Nigerians will pass their verdict not on how many times universities have gone on strike for personal pecuniary issues, or how individuals struggle to become VCs, or how militant or combative union leaders are, etc, but on how our ‘acada’ and research have changed their pathetic conditions, how our products, graduates, fit into society needs and how they solve problems like their counterparts in other lands. Let us work together to resolve these issues, rather than “fighting and fighting to finish”.
“It has also come to the notice of AVCNU, that some emergency self-serving and contrived NGOs are calling for the sacking/suspension of the VCs of Universities of Ilorin and Calabar, even when no serious investigations have been undertaken in that regard. It goes to show the craze in Nigeria of trivializing every issue, hence university staff and their unions must be wary of playing to the hands of or colluding with such groups to destroy Nigerian universities. Universities are highly valued national assets that should not be willfully rubbished”.
He continued, “We observed that, relatively, there had been palpable quiet in the system with ASUU having not caused any major tremor in the last few months. The federal ministry of education, under the Minister, seemed to have struck a chord of understanding with university stakeholders, except of course the senior staff association (SSANU) that had strenuously been trying to re-invent the university in some strange ways that would keep Bolognia wondering if universities would survive in Nigeria, nay Africa”.
The association commended the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu “The Minister and his team deserve credit and applause for the way they have responded to these onslaughts. Not that our universities are totally above board of inquest, but the challenge of “letting who amongst you is pure of blemish cast/throw the first stone” would continue to hunt the hecklers of SSANU. They ought to know that any country, or a people, who despises or degrades their fountain of knowledge, would remain in perpetual ignorance and bondage.
“So the Hon Minister of Education was right to have allowed the system to remain in motion despite the heckling and sometimes unnecessary violence that was directed at blackmailing the system into submission. It was therefore surprising to AVCNU, that the Honourable Minister would proceed to suspend some VCs just when new Councils were being inaugurated for the universities.
“The resolution of all lingering issues should just have been left in the hands of the new Councils, who would have been admonished to, as a matter of urgency, assume their mandate, like the new French President, and bring their institutions to pursue that which will edify and endear them to the nation.
“It is against this background that the actions of the Councils of FUNAAB and FUTA in upholding the sacred tenets of the university system, nay its autonomy, is commendable and is thus commended and applauded by the AVCNU. They have proved that they are equal to the task with which they are saddled. If we and our universities must emerge from our current level of obscurity in the global peer ranking of universities, then we and our proprietors (federal and state governments, private individuals and faith based organizations who OWN the universities) must ponder on the imperatives of attaining the lofty attributes of world-class universities.
“As modeled brilliantly by Jamil Salmi at the World Bank, the ingredients or hallmarks of a potential world class higher education institution are, in summary: a concentration of talents (viz. quality award winning staff and students, including high performing postgraduates, for a good research and innovation base); abundant resources (viz. funding, knowledge infrastructure – equipment and labs, ICT, etc and municipal facilities/utilities) and, more importantly, good governance (effective governance organs, observance of the rule of law and ethics, and financial probity). All three must interplay effectively, but it is governance that breaths essence into all the efforts of the proprietor and stakeholders. Simply stated, what autonomy entails is ability of a proprietor not to stultify the governance structures and procedures of a university. When Councils are constituted, they must be allowed to do their jobs.
“Councils that know their job, their mandate and their essence will get the job done with applause, and the institutions would perform and ultimately excel. What the Councils of FUNAAB and FUTA have done is to, without any iota of hesitation, halt the descent of the institutions to unbelievable anarchy, signal a new order of proactive engagement, built on deep understanding of what a university should be and hence laid the basis for sustainable peace in contrast to the theater of the absurd and confusion that had engulfed the institutions in the recent past, that seemed to last eternity. By their prompt and decisive intervention, they have restored the glory of the Nigerian university system in the comity of global universities.
“AVCNU salutes their courage in the face of heinous intimidation and primitive blackmail, clothed in the garb of critical radicalism”.
LAIDE AKINBOADE-ORIERE
