Tinubu to sack UNIZIK Governing Council over controversial VC appointment

Barring a last-minute change of plans, President Bola Tinubu will dissolve the Governing Council of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, popularly known as UNIZIK, over the controversial appointment of Bernard Odoh as the new vice-chancellor of the university, PREMIUM TIMES can exclusively report.

Mr Odoh, a professor, emerged as the seventh substantive vice-chancellor of the university on 29 October.

He hails from Ebonyi State where he unsuccessfully sought to become governor in 2023 under the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance.

The controversies

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that Mr Odoh’s academic profile and his appointment as vice-chancellor of UNIZIK were riddled with controversies.

For instance, Mr Odoh had, in his profile published on the university’s website, indicated that he served as a visiting professor at the Federal University, Gusau (FUGUS), Zamfara State, between July 2015 and October 2017.

But both FUGUS and the university’s chapter of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), refuted Mr Odoh’s claims in separate letters in response to enquiries about his academic profile.

Meanwhile, before Mr Odoh’s emergence as vice-chancellor, the UNIZIK’s chapter of ASUU and the institution’s chapter of the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria had alleged irregularities in both the announcement of vacancy and recruitment process.

Three days after Mr Odoh’s emergence, the Federal Ministry of Education, through a memo dated 1 November 2024, nullified the appointment, accusing the university’s Governing Council, led by Greg Mbadiwe, of making the appointment “without representatives of the ministry, the internal council members and other stakeholders.”

But the university, in a letter issued the same day by its Registrar and Secretary to Council, R.I. Nwokike, insisted that the council “adhered strictly to a valid judgment from a competent court, which directed the council to exercise its statutory authority in appointing the vice-chancellor.”

Also, Mr Odoh, in his first public response last Friday, said the education ministry lacks the power to nullify his appointment as the university’s vice-chancellor.

During a press conference in Awka, the disputed vice-chancellor, through his spokesperson, Charles Otu, claimed he was appointed visiting professor at FUGUS in 2014, but was later promoted to the rank of full professor of applied geophysics at the institution in 2015.

On Monday, ASUU said the appointments of Mr Odoh as vice-chancellor and Rosemary Nwokike as registrar of UNIZIK were illegal and a mockery of the university system.

The union in a statement by its National President, Emmanuel Osoedeke, a professor, said the appointments violated all known procedures from advertisement, search process, and shortlisting, to selection processes.

Imminent sack

President Tinubu has approved the sack of the university’s Governing Council members, sources familiar with the matter told PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday.

This newspaper also gathered that the country’s Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, has received approval from President Tinubu to announce the sack of the governing council members.

READ ALSO: ASUU speaks on controversial appointment of vice-chancellor by Nigerian university

PREMIUM TIMES understands that Mr Alausa will make the announcement any moment from Wednesday.

As of the time this report was filed, it was unclear if Mr Odoh, who was appointed vice-chancellor by the institution’s governing council, would continue to serve as VC of UNIZIK after the sack of the council members.