WHILE it is expedient to hail the action of the Visitor to the University of Abuja who sacked its controversial Vice Chancellor and dissolved the university’s Council the other day, it is also important to draw the attention of the Visitor, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to the mess that the unique University (of Abuja) has become. Don’t get it twisted, the intervention on Thursday 6th February has saved the 37-year old university from a crisis that had threatened its foundation.
The nation and indeed the federal government should be grateful to the audacity of the G-44 led by Professor Olanrewaju Aladeitan of Law Faculty. But here is an example of the peculiar mess that the G-44 professors just drew our attention to:
Apart from the irregularity of the strange and kangarooic selection of the dismissed vice chancellor, Professor Aisha Maikudi, the foundation of the just concluded admission of fresh students matriculated on the day the vice chancellor and the Governing Council were dismissed by the Visitor to the University, is also faulty and should not be ignored. There have been fraudulent admissions of fresh students without any open publication of cut-off points based on laid down criteria including merit, locality or catchment area, etc. None existed. The office of the Vice Chancellor handled the extant admission secretly with the Registrar. Most candidates who should have been admitted on merit for Medicine/Health Sciences, (MBBS, Vet, Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing); Law, Computer Science, could not get admission. It is curious.
In December last year, such frustrated candidates who could have been admitted on merit were advised to apply for some courses in social sciences, physical sciences and the humanities. No transparent action was taken to admit such candidates. The crisis that rocked the selection of the vice chancellor unfortunately took the steam out of what would have become another admission scandal noise. I have been actively involved in monitoring and evaluation of the 2025 admission of students. Here is a fact file: There is a particular candidate apparently an internally displaced girl from Borno state (who lives with me in Abuja) who applied to read Law at the University of Abuja. Rhoda Jida Aminu (original name withheld) who sat for the 2024 WAEC and NECO did not fail any subjects.
She passed all her nine subjects well including English language and Mathematics. She was the Head Girl of the private secondary school, Lightway Academy, Abuja. Rhoda who hails from Gwoza Local Government of Borno State obtained 277 in the last UTME. The University didn’t offer her admission. When she wasn’t offered admission to read Law, she changed her course to Media Studies on the advice of the Office of the office of the Registrar of the University of Abuja through a circular. Anyway, she wasn’t part of the fresh students the University of Abuja matriculated on Thursday because she wasn’t admitted with her 277. She is depressed.
My candidate later turned to her second choice, Nasarawa State University, but by the time she notified them, there was an obstacle: they had concluded the university’s post-UTME. Let me state the following facts about desperate efforts made to get Rhoda admission. A member of the dissolved Council of the University who heard about the plight of the Gwoza girl submitted her name to the VC and Registrar, yet there was no action. I didn’t stop there. I contacted two senior Editors including the Editor-in-Chief of the major newspaper in Abuja. In fact, the newspaper’s Editor-in-Chief who was so surprised by my travail went to the university campus to inquire into the plight of this poor girl from Borno state.
A senior officer of Uni-Abuja once promised the senior journalist that the authorities were going to release to the girl one of the two slots in Law kept for a big man in Abuja. They didn’t fulfil that promise. They later promised to give her English. They didn’t. I contacted another officer in the office of National Security Adviser who showed me evidence that he reached out to the embattled VC who never responded to the request for admission for the ‘special’ candidate.
I also contacted an influential officer in the office of the Registrar to the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, (JAMB) who later told me that the University of Abuja is allegedly notorious for admission irregularities. He promised some intervention on the 277 point without admission.
Sadly, until Thursday 6th February, when they did their matriculation, no feedback from my contact in JAMB. What is worse, earlier in the week before matriculation, I sent some messages after calls to the candidate’s Senator in the Borno South Senatorial District, Ali Ndume, no response till the present. In my desperation to secure admission for anything for my candidate I also sent a WhatsApp message to the Borno State Governor, B. Zulum in case there was something that could be done for her daughter, but no dice at press time.
Meanwhile, I confirmed from various ‘classmates’ of my candidate and other victims of admission scandal at the University of Abuja that there is an admission racket in the university. I sent secret agents who confirmed various charges for various courses, except requests from big men in Abuja. I refused to pay but I met beneficiaries who paid for admission. I was disoriented.
In this regard, even the Deans of various faculties have no power over admission. I contacted the current Dean of Law in the beginning, but he told me that he could do nothing about my candidate. I later discovered his handicap when I saw his name on the G-44 professors who protested the irregularity in the curious selection of the fallen VC. The suspected admission racket in the University for ‘lucrative courses’ isn’t new. Four years ago, the immediate past Vice Chancellor Professor Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah bamboozled me into believing that he was not aware that another candidate, an indigene of Abuja Jessica Danladi could not be admitted to read Law with her 243 from UTME.
The candidate who I thought could meet their merit cut-off point or locality criterion being a native of Abuja wasn’t admitted for Law. When I told Na’Allah Jessica wasn’t admitted shortly before matriculation the brilliant Gbagyi girl who later met those who didn’t obtain up to 200 in Law, was told to accept History and International Relations. Jessica just graduated from the University but not with a Law degree as she desired. That is how the University of Abuja has been frustrating and destroying destinies of citizens.
There have been so many unpleasant stories of non-academic and unethical practices about the university that I have known in Abuja from the University Junction, Wuse Zone 6, since 1988 when I joined the premier newspaper, “Abuja Newsday” in the same Wuse Zone 6, Abuja.
The University of Abuja is too important to be left to the whims and caprices of mediocre irredentists and those who pretend to be representing Abuja in National Assembly and the Federal Executive Council. Yes, it is a federal university but even the FCT Minister is a serious stakeholder. It isn’t like a federal university situated in any of the 36 states. It is a federal university located in the capital of the federation and so it is both a federal and federation university that should enjoy some sumptuous and special respect and status from the federal government and 36 states of the federation. It is the only university we can boldly call ‘our university’, after all. Appointments and admissions at the University of Abuja should reflect the character of the federation that owns it.
Who actually reflected on the texture of the Council and the Administration that the Visitor cancelled on Thursday? The Chairman of the defunct Council/Pro Chancellor AVM Saddiq Ismaila Kaita hails from Katsina state. The dismissed Vice Chancellor, Professor Aisha Maikudi also hails from Katsina state. She too is the daughter of the immediate past Chairman of the Council/Pro Chancellor Sani Maikudi from Katsina state. The immediate past Vice Chancellor who was alleged to have made Professor Maikudi Dean and Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) within two years of professorial experience, was said to have enjoyed such a curious concession for Professor N’allah five years ago. Even in Katsina state, would they have allowed this kind of nepotism in a state university, especially when standards are involved?
And that is why even the change of the organic name of the university – University of Abuja should not be seen as conclusive, despite the high profile and awesomeness associated with the beneficiary: General Yakubu Gowon. This isn’t a preface to the debate on what is in a name. It is a deconstruction for another day.
And so although the Visitor to the University should be commended for his intervention this week, yet the intervention should not end there. There should be consequences for serious administrative infractions for wrongdoing in that university of the federation. The University of Abuja should not be left for only children of high profile public officers who can always intimidate the vice chancellor through appropriation padding and blackmail over corruption probes. It is our university and only a very experienced and qualified scholar should be selected by a competent Governing Council.
So, as the new Pro Chancellor, Senator Lanre Tejuoso and Acting Vice chancellor Professor Lar Patricia Manko assume office, the Visitor should set up a Visitation Panel to look into various issues that have diminished the stature of Uni-Abuja. The issues should include why admissions criteria have been opaque and elusive to brilliant candidates. Why did former Vice Chancellor Na’Allah once deride JAMB as inconsequential to university admissions that he alone would like to handle? There should be inquiries into why the academic tradition of electing Deans was not followed in the last five years in the university? How did Professor Aisha Maikudi become DVC within two years of professorial chair?
What happened to the academic convention of regular Inaugural Lectures in Uni-Abuja in the last five years? There are so many questions but, in the main, what happened to the Uni-Abuja Chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and members of the Senate of the University while all these alleged irregularities were being perpetrated? Why did they have to wait for the two whistle blowers in the defunct Council before the current rebellion against the university’s peculiar mess?
Meanwhile, the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa who nearly made me to fall to the danger of assumption that he wasn’t going to do anything, deserves some plaudit for listening to various voices of reason and wisdom to save our University of Abuja.
Federal universities without national character will continue next week…
- Oloja is former editor of The Guardian newspaper and his column, Inside Stuff, runs on the back page of the newspaper on Sundays. The column appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Mondays.