By EMMA AMAIZE

WHY did the Federal Government, on October 20, 2011, disband the governing board of the Federal University of Petroleum Resources, FUPRE, Ugbomro, Effurun, Delta State, as well as those of other Federal Government –owned universities when the tenure of the respective boards had not expired, without a convincing explanation for the action?

Is President Goodluck Jonathan, who authorized the dissolution of the boards, according to a circular letter, reference number, SGF/ 19/S./81/XIII/704, by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim,  ignorant of the Universities (Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment  Act 2003, gazetted by the Federal Republic of Nigeria in Nigerian Official Gazette, No 10, Volume 94 of January 12, as Act No. 1 of 2007, otherwise known as the Universities Autonomy Act, which grants a four-year tenure to members of the board, and also stipulates the grounds for disbandment.

Section 2, 2A of the Act, which is on ‘Tenure of Council” states inter-alia: “The Council so constituted shall have a tenure of four years from the date of its inauguration provided that where a Council is found to be incompetent and corrupt it shall be dissolved by the Visitor and a new Council shall be immediately constituted for the effective functioning of the University”.

The raison d’être for the dissolution of the governing council of FUPRE, headed by the Prof David Onyejekwe, the first atomic energy professor in Nigeria and Africa,  which, as Sunday Vanguard discovered, led to the axing of other boards, remains curious.

The board was inaugurated in February, 2009 and its four-year mandate, expected to expire in 2013. And, contrary to the provisions of the Act, a new council has not been constituted more than two months after the dissolution.

The suggestion, in some quarters, is that the powerplay in the governing council of FUPRE on one hand, and between the vice chancellor and some officials of the National Universities Commission, NUC, on the other hand, led the Minister of Education to upturn the decision of the governing council of the troubled university, and got the Federal Government,

ASUU Chairman, Awuzie and President Jonathan

not only to rubber stamp its decision and sack the FUPRE board, but also the governing boards of other federal universities.

A university professor, who preferred anonymity, told Sunday Vanguard, “My concern is that President Jonathan was not properly briefed before he approved the dissolution of the governing councils of federal universities, as this has not happened even under military regimes, but Nigerians don’t seem to understand the dire implications of what a clique in the university and NUC has done to the entire federal universities in the country”.

Genesis

Sunday Vanguard was informed that two years after it was inaugurated, the FUPRE governing council, inundated with  allegations of mismanagement and corruption  against some officials of the university, inaugurated a five-man panel in July, headed by Dr. (Mrs) Love Ineh, to look into the claims, which touched on why the school is practically in comatose.  Interestingly, after a five-year programme, the students did not graduate because, to some people, the authorities did not plan for it.

Findings

The investigation panel, in its report, obtained by Sunday Vanguard, alleged that some top officials mismanaged the institution.

It said a group hoodwinked the vice-chancellor, Prof Tunde Alabi, on many issues and unilaterally ran the university without recourse to the acting vice- chancellor, Prof Isaac Osazuwa, stating  that a contract of N21 million for rehabilitation of the university access road was signed by an official without recourse to Osazuwa.

According to the panel’s report, one official diverted N1.524 million, belonging to a contractor, into a private bank account despite a written instruction by the contractor to pay the money into the account of the company.

A staffer was allegedly found to be operating business in dollars with a Nigerian –based company after the approval of the money in dollars for local transactions. Besides hijacking contracts won by contractors, the clique allegedly paid approved money in dollars and naira into their personal accounts.

The panel stated, “On the bandwidth matter, the official (names withheld) was manipulating naira and dollar in payment to the vendor, with the intent of defrauding the university. Evidence of this amount advance is $12,400.00, but the amount paid is $12,300.00, leaving a difference for refund to be $100.00.

This amount is converted to N15, 300 (at the naira-dollar exchange rate of 153: 1) to be refunded and not N2, 900, which the official refunded and receipt issued by the bursary…”

It noted that most of the transactions, particularly the ones involving the said official, “are fraudulent and due to lack of proper understanding of the job schedule”.

According to the report, “The council should direct the panel investigating the activities of the official to find out whether it is lawful for an official of a government parastatal in Nigeria to approve and sign money for payment in any other currency other than the naira”.

The panel also found out that N1.85 million approved monthly for security is paid into the personal account of a staff and, thereafter, N902, 000 is withdrawn and handed over in cash to a top official.

What went wrong?

The state of things in FUPRE is that the institution was mismanaged to the extent that for five years, its programmes could not be accredited and academic programmes were being run behind schedule because the administrators lacked supervisory skill, while  endowed academics were frustrated out of the university.

The investigation panel captured it in its report thus: “It is to be noted that the vice chancellor, as chief executive officer of FUPRE, needs competent hands to advise him from time to time on the efficient administration of the university. Indeed, the registrar and the bursar abandoned their statutory roles and behaved like puppets and are thereby misleading the vice chancellor on many issues.

“There is a general lack of direction in the conduct of the affairs of the university; this has affected the university negatively. For example, a new university that started from the scratch should have been running a normal academic calendar, especially when staff and student unionism did not pose any problem. Instead, it has been running the university calendar behind schedule.”

NUC cabal

A powerful official of the National Universities Commission (NUC), the regulating body for universities, is said to have had more than a passing interest in the FUPRE affair and was not in support of the governing council. And that is where the trouble between the highly connected official and the Onyejekwe board reportedly reclines. The NUC official opposed the suspension of some top officials. He allegedly got the Federal Ministry of Education to arm-twist the governing council to change the suspension to accumulated leave.

But when it was found that the “untouchable” officials were indicted in the report of the panel, the influential NUC official moved to rubbish the governing council. The group moved against the acting vice chancellor, Osazuwa, appointed by the governing council by authorizing a management official under him to freeze the accounts of the university and recalling the vice chancellor.

By law, the governing council of the university is empowered to appoint, sanction a vice chancellor; appoint an acting vice chancellor and take decisions it deems fit in the interest of the university. And its decisions are not supposed to be upturned by the NUC or the Federal Ministry of Education.

While Osazuwa was, by the powers of the governing council, functioning as an acting vice chancellor, the NUC, in a letter to the bursar of the university, authorized her to freeze the accounts of the university without reference to him.

Responding to the alleged breach, Osazuwa, in a letter to the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Abuja, dated November I, stated that the bursar had written to all the relevant banks to freeze FUPRE account, claiming “to have received the mandate from the National Universities Commission, NUC, through the Director, Quality Assurance Office at NUC.”

Also, the university, in another letter by the acting registrar, E.E. Gbagi (Mrs.), addressed to the Secretary to the Federal Government, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim ,  informed him that the Senate of FUPRE met on October 31 and fully aligned itself with the decision of the governing council to appoint Osazuwa as acting vice chancellor in the absence of the vice chancellor, Alabi, who was then on leave.

She stated that the Senate also dissociated itself from the court actions instituted by the vice chancellor against the governing council of FUPRE and viewed the letter by the bursar to the banks as capable of not only heightening tension, but grounding the university.

Recall

In a letter, entitled, “Re-Restoration of Law and Order in Federal University of Petroleum Resources, FUPRE, Effurun, the acting permanent secretary, Fed Ministry of Education , K.M. Lawal (Mrs), to the vice chancellor, stated that further to the dissolution of the boards of Federal Governmental parasatals, agencies, companies and institutions by the Federal Government, the registrar, Dr. Onwuka, was being recalled from “forced terminal leave”, while the vice chancellor, Alabi, was also recalled from “suspension”. The letter asked Gbagi (Mrs) and Osazuwa to revert to their positions of deputy registrar and deputy vice chancellor.

It is not known if the Federal Ministry of Education had a mindset on the FUPRE debacle, but not a few persons are surprised that the ministry, which prevailed on the governing council to convert Alabi’s suspension to accumulated leave, feigned it was not aware the vice chancellor was on accumulated/terminal leave, just as Onwuka, in the letter of recall sent to Alabi , November 10, after the governing council had been dissolved in October.

However, what evidently played out between the education ministry and the SGF, Anyim, is an eye opener. Sunday Vanguard was reliably informed that when the Federal Ministry of Education initially recommended the dissolution of the governing council of FUPRE, Anyim opposed the move, asking for justification for the action.  A source said he was concerned that a governing council headed by an Igbo man was singled out for dissolution.

The next time the matter came back to the SGF, it was allegedly for the dissolution of the boards of the entire federal universities. And on October 20, 2011, the boards were sacked. There is no replacement at the time of this report and the chief executives were directed to report to the Minister of Education, a directive that runs counter to the Act regulating the management of federal universities.

Ball in Jonathan’s court

From the facts on ground, it is apparent that both the Federal Ministry of Education and NUC are working in tandem in the FUPRE matter, but whose interests are they serving? The NUC peace team, led by Prof Alhassan Bichi, which was deployed by the commission in November, had since found out that academic programmes of the university are sub-standard and could not be accredited despite the resources made available to it by the Federal Government.  The presence of the Bichi team in FUPRE, however, appears to be a strategy by the powerful group to maintain its grip on power.

The panel set up by the governing council has already laid bare the reasons for the rot in the university and the governing council had started taking measures to restore sanity to the school when the Federal Ministry of Education and NUC  struck and threw away the baby with the bath water.

What many expect President Jonathan to do is to carefully call for and study the records on the problems that have made FUPRE to be redundant in the last five years and take drastic actions to restore sanity, beginning with the reversal of the sacking of the governing council of the institution and those of other federal universities to allow peace to reign.