1 week ago
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Since inception over 65 years ago, the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) in Enugu state has remained a national university, with an international outlook in both staffing and student population.
The vice chancellor position has thus been occupied by foreigners and people from both Northern and Southern regions of the country.
However, over the last 30 years, the position has drifted to people from only the South-eastern states, and particularly skewed mostly to indigenes of Abia, Anambra, and Enugu states extractions.
Most recently, Enugu state has mounted campaigns to permanently retain the position of the vice chancellor, and even gone further with the ludicrous arguments to rotate the posts within local the government areas making up Enugu state.
The agitation initially championed by Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, a former governor, was to ensure that an Nsukka indigenous professor is foisted on the university.
The failure of this obviously disingenuous agitation on national television did not deter the campaign which has now been bought over by the present governor and redesigned to favour the constituent senatorial zones of Enugu state.
The domestication of the leadership of this university with the enviable status and standing known for it since inception may have a correlation to its recent decline in both national and international ratings. The university is no longer within the league of the 10 best universities in Nigeria.
As at now, almost every leadership position in its hierarchy is presently occupied by people from Enugu state, and this obviously does not convey any good perception amongst the comity of elite citadels of learning in the country.
For instance, of the 15-member Governing Council of the UNN, the acting vice chancellor, the deputy vice chancellor, registrar, as well as four other members are all from Enugu state, while the rest are persons from Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi and Ekiti states.
In fact, there is no member either elected or nominated who hails from Imo state particularly. It is also worthy of note that both Imo and Ebonyi states have been marginalised in the VC position of UNN since its inception. However, Ebonyi state currently has a deputy vice chancellor and an elected member in the council.
Consequently, any attempt, premeditated or otherwise, to domesticate a once national educational pride to a local university, should be resisted by the federal government, lest it will be disaligned from the vision of its initial conceptualisations of the founders alongside its peers from other parts of the country.
It is very pertinent to point out that a situation where the acting vice chancellor, deputy vice chancellor, registrar, bursar and librarian of the university hail from one state (Enugu) completely negates the Federal Character Principle enshrined in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended).
The visitor of this federal university still remains the president, in this case, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. We, therefore, implore the president to use his good offices to resist the attempt by the governor of Enugu state in cohort with some of his predecessors to foist a a vice chancellor based on sentiments.
A national university like the UNN should enjoy robust engagement in selecting leadership to drive desired educational realignment of the renewed hope administration of President Tinubu.
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