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“For instance, you can imagine that many agencies, including the National Universities Commission , are without substantive heads, and this has been limiting the decision-making capacities of their acting heads,” a university lecturer, Usman Bala, told PREMIUM TIMES.PREMIUM TIMES delivers fact-based journalism for Nigerians, by Nigerians — and our community of supporters, the readers who donate, make our work possible.
“Being a lecturer, or a former DG of Nigerian Law School is not enough to be appointed as a minister. You can imagine that this man as a vice-chancellor of a small private university flouted the regulations and admitted law students above the quota allocated to the university. That is a former DG of Law School, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who is expected to know better,” the source said.
The Chairman of the University of Jos chapter of the union, Chris Yilgwan, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria at the time,He said the dissolution contravened the laws establishing federal universities, adding that it would stagnate the progress of the institutions. In fact, in some institutions, where the tenure of the vice-chancellors, rectors or provosts has ended, the appointment of their successors has led to controversies and even industrial actions by workers.as the local chapter of ASUU declared an indefinite strike after accusing the university administrators of taking decisions specifically reserved for the governing council.
The vice-chancellor said: “Since 2016, there has been an embargo placed on the recruitment of staff across the institutions and in exceptional cases, we are made to seek waivers from the office of the Head Of Civil Service Of the Federation, Federal Character Commission, Bureau of Public Procurement, among others.
The hike in fees led to protests by students across different universities who demanded that the management of the universities reverse the hike, especially given the cost of living crisis in the country.