The country woke up on 22nd of June,2023 to startling news of the dissolution of federal boards, agencies and parastatals, including govering councils of all federal universities by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The news of the dissolution of the governing councils of the federal universities was conveyed to the universities by National Universities Commission (NUC), a body charged with the regulation of the country’s universities, in conformity with the Presidential directive.
The action has been condemned by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Non Academic Staff Union (NASU), and other concerned bodies.
To start with, governing councils of universities are not like other boards that can be constituted and dissolved at will. They are tenure based and by the Act that established universities, occupants of the governing board or council should serve their statutory tenures, unless a case of corruption or gross incompetence has been established against such particular governing council.
ASUU was categorical on the status of the governing council of a university and in its words: “The Act provided a statutory tenure of governing councils of universities and so they cannot be dissolved at will like other boards.
“The governing council is the highest decision-making body of every university and once it is dissolved without immediate replacement, it stalls every major decision in the university.”
And when major decisions are stalled in a university, it portends educational doom wherein the future of the nation hangs in a delicate balance.
Before now, in fact since 2009 ASUU has been in what could be described as a running battle with the federal government, over issues bordering on university autonomy, application of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS), Academic Earned Allowance, amongst others, which the Federal Governnment has refused to back down on.
The fight on these issues resulted to protracted strikes and complete industrial disharmony in citadels of learning that lasted for over nine months and instead of the previous federal government to handle it amicably through ‘collective bargaining’ it evoked the policy of ‘no work, no pay’ and ultimately went to court to procure an injunction, forcing ASUU to call off its strike.
Unfortunately, those issues still persist, and could be likened to sitting on a keg of gunpowder which could explode anyday.
These struggles occasioned by dissatisfaction of stakeholders in Tertiary institutions, to say the least, has impacted negatively on the educational standards of the country.
No wonder, therefore, Nigerian students now troop to neighbouring countries such as Ghana, Togo and Benin Republic to acquire education.
As the students are jostling to go out of the country, the lecturers are emigrating in their numbers for greener pastures in what has been popularly referred to as the ‘japa syndrome.’
Universities should remain centres of excellence, therefore, the dissolution of governing councils will defeat that purpose.
The essence of university autonomy is to allow the institutions compete favourably with their counterparts all over the world, as the word university means universal.
The idea is to allow the universities bring the best out of themselves. This can only be achieved when reasonable freedom is granted to our universities and there is no way that can be gotten when their governing councils are intermittently or indiscriminately dissolved.
We therefore call on all stakeholders concerned and well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on the federal government to rethink its decision. ‘What is done well, should be called beautiful,’ a popular adage says.