It was not for nothing that the Nigerian lawmakers inserted the game-changing provision in the Universities (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment) Act 2003, No 1 of 2007, that outrightly and perpetually banned sole administration in Nigerian universities. Otherwise known and called the Universities Autonomy Act, this landmark legislation in Section 5, subsection (12) categorically stated thus: “There shall be no sole administration in any Nigerian university”. The essence of the bold legal move by the government after years of struggle by the academia through the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is to guarantee the self-governing status of the universities while promoting their good governance and development in line with global best practices.
Contrary to this explicit, unambiguous legal backing to insulate and safeguard the Nigerian ‘ivory towers’ from the vicissitudes of the chicanery and political horse trading often perpetrated in the dark recesses of the nation’s politico-bureaucratic establishment, some incompetent apparatchiks of the Tinubu regime led by the current Minister of Education have lately literally thrown the University of Abuja under the bus. By facilitating the unlawful removal of the 7th substantive Vice-Chancellor, Professor Aisha Sani Maikudi, and disbandment of the Governing Council, these forces have placed the governance and management of the University in the hands of a strange and alien leadership contraption. Imposed without the backing of the university system’s law, tradition, and convention of the university system, not to mention global best practices, the two-man face of the current leadership represents everything wrong with the notion of sole administration running a 21st-century university.
The acting Vice-Chancellor, Professor Patricia Manko Lar, was appointed without recourse to the procedure and involvement of the statutory organs (University Senate and Governing Council), with the exclusive power to do so. Based on the existing rules, an acting Vice-Chancellor cannot be appointed from outside the confines of the University of Abuja, the way Professor Lar was appointed from the University of Jos.
This, ipso facto, renders her appointment illegal and an indefensible imposition. For his part, Dr. Lanre Tejuoso, as the Pro-Chancellor with zero other members, has remained the embodiment of the ‘one-man Council’. This also does not translate into the university operating a full-fledged Governing Council. Hence, the University of Abuja is administered only at the whims of the two fellows, contrary to the extant laws, prescribed procedures, and practices.
The last time any Nigerian university was infamously made to suffer the ignominy of having an imposed sole administrator presiding over its affairs was when the late Major General Mamman Kontagora was appointed by the Abacha military junta at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, in the mid-1990s. However, following the return of the civil-democratic dispensation from 1999, no time was wasted in redressing all matters inconsistent with the operations of liberal democracy. For the Nigerian university system, this culminated in the enactment of the popular and well-received autonomy act that has now been threatened by the resuscitation of an ugly phenomenon hitherto associated with past military dictatorship, by the Tinubu administration. The sudden ambush and removal of legitimate governing authorities of the University of Abuja by an administration of self-professed democrats has remained strange and shocking, as their replacement has proved a recipe for generalised crisis. What an irony!
At the root of the crisis afflicting the University of Abuja is the nebulous mandate of the imposed sole administration. By the instrument of appointment of Professor Lar as acting Vice-Chancellor, she is supposed to facilitate the process of appointing a new substantive Vice-Chancellor. On the contrary, since she assumed duty along with Senator Tejuoso, the Pro-Chancellor, they have continuously claimed to be mandated to restore sanity to the University. Whatever that means. Thus, with their attention not focused on the transition to a new leadership mentioned in Professor Lar’s letter of appointment, and without them being accountable to anyone, the duo has been engaged in trial-and-error management of the institution. This portends the inevitability of a monumental crisis in the system. What are the red flags about this?
First, it is Professor Patricia Lar’s tenure extension agenda. It is an open secret in the university community that the imposed sole administrator is working not only towards a renewal of her appointment as acting Vice-Chancellor for another six months on expiration of this term, but also her subsequent emergence as the next substantive Vice-Chancellor of the University of Abuja. This has underscored her decision to undertake far-reaching, massive administrative changes, including personnel redeployment, and constant policy changes to suit emergent needs and situations. The tenure extension bid of the professor from the University of Jos is inevitably crisis-bound. Apart from the existing laws and due process being against it, members of the University of Abuja Senate who orchestrated the so-called crisis that brought Professor Lar on board will not accept such a move.
Perceiving her as a ‘place-holder’, the self-styled G44 members will surely stop at nothing to ensure that Professor Lar returns to the University of Jos and one of them is appointed to succeed her when the current tenure expires. Among their fold is an alleged anointed candidate who is said to be an expert in playing double game, opportunistically oscillating between the group’s interest and Professor Lar’s agenda. The impending power tussle is bound to shake the university to its foundations, and it will be interesting to see the government’s reaction, given that a mere cacophony of post-transition noise appeared to convince it to brutally uproot the validly appointed Vice-Chancellor and Governing Council in early February.
Secondly, the wholesale distortion of the governance structure and process has reduced the university into a ‘bastion of anything goes.’ Professor Lar has not only created and appointed three senior special assistants who have taken over the duties and positions of Deputy Vice-Chancellors in the system’s order of protocol. She has also disregarded the globally recognised principle of seniority in the appointment of acting heads of key administrative departments and units, including the Registry, Safety (Security), and Transport units.
This is in addition to putting several square pegs in round holes when she recently appointed over sixty new directors and heads of academic and other centres and units. These incongruous actions have been afflicting the university on several fronts: friction and mistrust amongst hitherto harmoniously working colleagues, collapse of order, discipline, and productivity, as well as increasing non-recognition and resistance against the unwelcome senior special assistant position the most recent of which is by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
A conspicuous manifestation of the ongoing downslide in the university’s operations is that, almost halfway into the second semester of the current academic session, not a single department can boast of when the first-semester examination results of its students will be ready.
And nobody in the top echelon of the administration seems to care! Critical sections of the university community are increasingly miffed by a reign of impunity by Professor Lar, which they believe she can never dare to exercise at the University of Jos should she be presiding over its affairs. The question serious-minded stakeholders in and around the institution have kept asking is, why should the University of Abuja be the object of such abject misgovernance? The question is being asked not to get an obvious answer, but as an expression of frustration, and interrogation of the unwelcome order as a means to its termination sooner rather than later.
Furthermore, the divisive politics of the acting Vice-Chancellor are further eroding the confidence of stakeholders and deepening the crisis for the sole administration. Based on its core values, the University of Abuja was established to promote unity and scholarship.
Unlike various past administrations since the establishment of the university, Professor Lar has only been conducting affairs in breach of the prescribed unity and corporate harmony. As a fellow Christian, I am concerned and alarmed by how the sole administration is portraying gross insensitivity, especially towards upholding faith-balancing and inclusivity in management composition.
Only last week, the press was awash with the disturbing news that all the existing principal officers at the university belong to one religious faith. This followed the appointment of an acting Registrar who was neither the most senior Deputy Registrar nor the best-qualified candidate, except for her faith. Again, both the acting Registrar and the Bursar hail from Benue State, which contravenes the Federal Character principle and relevant provisions of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended. Similarly, out of the new directors appointed by Professor Lar, earlier mentioned, over 80 % were Christians, with only about 13 % Muslims. Needless to say, there is no award for bigotry in university administration except laying a foundation for disaffection, corporate disharmony, and anti-intellectualism.
Meanwhile, the attempt to cause disaffection and further ‘divide and rule’ the university staff via the instrumentality of a commissioned “Committee on Staff Profile” has come unstuck on account of its outright rejection by the entire congress of ASUU. The union was expected to nominate a representative to serve on the committee, which has been set up to audit the targeted staff recruited and promoted from 2022. This is under the guise of reviewing the “staff profile”.
However, relying on the existing laws, administrative precedents and laid down procedures, ASUU resolved that staff audit is a Council affair for which Professor Lar, as an imposed acting Vice-Chancellor, lacks the locus standi to set up the committee, and the senior special assistant (administration), the recognition and legitimacy to chair it. As I write this, the other staff unions are considering the matter and would likely toe the line of ASUU and equally reject the ill-conceived but doomed scheme. Beyond this point, any attempt to force the scheme through by the sole administration can only result in a serious crisis of monumental proportions.
The last but not least signpost of an impending crisis under the imposed sole administration is the state of financial health of the university. It is known that the administration of Professor Aisha Sani Maikudi left a financially buoyant University of Abuja when she was unlawfully removed from office on 6th February 2025. What is yet totally unclear now is what has become of the huge financial resources since Professor Lar assumed duty on the 10th of February. It is feared that the current administrators have only concentrated on fund utilisation without consideration for its generation. As someone has recently suggested, there may be a need to institute a special visitation panel to look into the university under the current sole administration. This should include the humongous financial expenditure in the period under review, which many in the university claim there is nothing tangible to show for it. Hence, many expect Professor Lar to bequeath a healthy financial status for the university. Otherwise, all hell will break loose while demanding accountability and avoiding a serious crisis.
In conclusion, the imposition of the legally banned sole administration by the Federal Government at the University of Abuja has been nothing short of a fiasco. Vague in conception but brutal in implementation, the current leadership contraption has changed the face and diminished the mojo of the university as an aspiring world-class centre of excellence. The special aura of the once bubbling citadel of unity and learning at the nation’s capital is gone, and it has been replaced by an atmosphere of reckless and infantile bigotry. Where the University of Abuja goes from this point is for the government to redress the current ugly situation, moving forward.
By, Theodora S. Okpanachi, Ph.D
Faculty of Social Sciences,
University of Abuja,
Abuja.
