The Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU) has described the composition of the newly constituted governing councils of federal universities as the best in the recent history of Nigeria’s public university education.
The secretary-general of the committee, Prof. Yakubu Ochefu, made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Nigerian Tribune at the weekend.
He was asked to comment on the calibre of people on the governing council list for the universities.
On Friday, the Federal Government released the list of the new governing council members for all its tertiary educational institutions, comprising universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education.
There are 555 in all, and each of them has five people as an external member of the council, including their chairmen.
It is observed that most times in the past, the federal government didn’t usually follow the constitutional conditions for who should be appointed as external members and chairmen of this highest decision-making organ for universities outside academic matters.
The criteria, according to the Universities Miscellaneous Provisions (Amendment) Act, 2003, Subsection (2), explicitly spell out the qualifications of persons to be appointed for the roles: a person of proven integrity, knowledgeable, and familiar with the affairs and traditions of the university.
It is expected that for a person to be knowledgeable and familiar with the affairs and traditions of the university, he or she must at least be a graduate.
But since, apart from the moral qualifications above, the Act does not expressly specify any
educational qualification for membership in the Council, most previous governments usually filled the positions with politicians, who are non-graduates, to compensate them for one thing or another.
Speaking further on the composition of the current list, Ochefu said that even though the appointment was too delayed, which was not good for the university system, the calibre of persons on the list as external members is heavy.
According to him, “I must confess that the list is a strong one. I did a quick scan on the list; it has 14 professors as chairmen, and out of the last councils that were dissolved, five of them were re-appointed.
“There are five women who are now pro-chancellors. About 28 professors are already on the list as external members of the councils.
“We have a number of Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs); we have former ministers and governors on the list.
“There is also a former head of service. There are two former executive secretaries of the National Universities Commission.
“We also have a number of former vice-chancellors and so forth.
“The list indeed is far away from the usual norm, and that is a plus for the public university system.”
Ochefu explained that now that the Federal Government has come up with the external members of the councils, the rest that will make up the remaining members of the council for each university is mostly left for universities to fill.
He declared that the process to appoint the internal council members is not difficult, as some of them that will be on the list are by virtue of their offices.
According to him, the internal members are the vice chancellors, the deputy vice chancellors, the representatives of the University Senate, the congregation, and a few others.
He said once the full council members are filled, they are expected to hit the ground running.
On some universities whose vice chancellors had completed their tenures and their offices had already been advertised for replacement, and which the Academic Staff Union of Universities had kicked against on the premise that only the governing councils have the constitutional power to appoint VCs, Ochefu said, “Now that governing councils are in place, those institutions where new VCs are due will begin the process of replacing them soonest.
“For those who had already advertised their own vacancies and received applications, it is now left for their respective governing councils to either ratify the process if satisfied by the parameter used or decide to start afresh if otherwise.
“So, each governing council has discretion to do that,” he emphasised.
But above all, it is expected that the universities will now have smooth operations.
