A Civil Society Organisation (CSO), Civil Society Coalition for Educational Development, said the protest over the emergence of Prof Aisha Mekudi as Vice Chancellor of the University of Abuja, is a direct attack on due process, an assault on the global demand agenda to have more women and youths in leadership.
The group in a statement by Dr. Wisdom Ohalete Chinedu, stated the protest over Prof. Mekudi’s emergence was sponsored by individuals who have a vested interest in the system and are resistant to change.
“After careful investigation, our intel reveals that the protest was sponsored and engineered by vested interests for nefarious intentions, and not out of genuine concerns to reposition the sector.
“We wonder why highly educated and knowledgeable individuals will allow themselves to be used for sinister purposes,” the group stated.
It noted that the selection of the vice-chancellor of the university has been a recurring issue, recalling that the same scenario played out during the appointment of the former Vice Chancellor, Prof. Adelabu until its recommendations to the Minister of Education then saved the situation.
“We recall also with nostalgia, our role in the appointment of the immediate past Vice Chancellor, Prof. Abdulrasheed Na’Allah,” it stated.
The group called on the Nigerian Police to investigate and prosecute persons who attempted to cause chaos to paint the Vice Chancellor in a bad light before the member’s public.
“We observed with incontrovertible evidence that the entire protest is about the orchestrated plan to discredit Prof. Aisha Maikudi, the acting Vice Chancellor who had previously served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor without any record of failure or non-qualification.
“The desperation to pull her down because she is a woman, a youth and a northerner is antithetical to the development of education in Nigeria, especially at a time the global attention is on harnessing the numerous potentials of young people, especially women to boost growth,” it stated.
According to the group, the recurring crisis over leadership selection at the University of Abuja suggests that many have been victims of manipulation which has denied them their rights.
“After looking dispassionately at the allegations, we discovered that the claim that southerners were not included in the selecting committee was untrue and a desperate attempt to discredit the process, acting the script of their sponsors.
“The council members from the South West and South East are acting a script and this must be clearly spelt out.
“Their grouse is that they were given assignments that would prevent them from serving on the selection board.
‘’Prof. Ralph Akinfeleye and Mrs. Chisom Dorcas Obih have no right, as Council members of the university to decide which assignment suits them, unless they have interests they are yet to tell the academic community and indeed Nigerians,” the coalition stated.
It wondered why Prof. Aisha Mekudi’s appointment as Deputy Vice-Chancellor, or as acting Vice Chancellor was not challenged if qualification is the issue.
“Why is it now that a productive younger female professor is involved that her colleagues have remembered that they have a protesting skill to display?
“This is pettiness taken too far. As stakeholders in this sector, we must urge the honourable Minister of Education not to bow to pressure from these anti-development quarters. We find the qualification allegation very strange, unbelievable and distracting.
“This is so because Prof. Aisha Mekudi has served meritoriously as a Deputy Vice-Chancellor, a position that has almost equal qualifications as Vice Chancellor, yet not challenged by anyone then. The same person here is also the current Acting Vice-Chancellor.
“It is therefore baffling that same person who is a sitting Vice Chancellor in acting capacity could suddenly become unqualified for a position she is still holding,” the group noted.
It called on President Bola Tinubu to wade into the matter “and give needed protection to the acting Vice Chancellor who is obviously a victim of ethnic gang-up, political orchestration and desperate power mongers in the University of Abuja, to stop those who are desperately attempting to ridicule his efforts in getting youths and women involved in leadership, maintaining that women have so much to offer in raising the bar of national development.
“We demand that the Nigeria Police invite trouble makers as espoused in our petition to the force to serve as a deterrent to others.
“We demand that the Minister (of Education), after announcing Prof Aisha Mekudi as recommended by us, should set up a truth and reconciliation panel for post VC tussle era.”
