Outgoing UNIZIK VC defies Tinubu’s order, move to convene illegal Senate meeting

The outgoing Vice-Chancellor of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Professor Charles Esimone has moved on with his illegal plans to impose his stooge, Professor Joseph Ikechebelu as the Vice-Chancellor of the University, against extant laws of the University.

Contrary to the laws of the University which requires that notices for Senate meetings must be given, at least seven days before the scheduled date of the meeting, Professor Esimone, in furtherance of his scheme to impose a stooge as the Vice-Chancellor of that university, had Saturday circulated a notice for a Senate meeting of the university, purportedly, for Wednesday 8th of May, which is about five days from now.

While the University law makes it mandatory that an agenda for any senate meeting be included in the circular notifying senators of the meeting, the current circular does not contain any agenda.

However, it is confirmed from reliable sources that the sole agenda of the meeting might be a purported election of an acting Vice-Chancellor, by his handpicked acting heads of departments in the university.

According to one of the Heads of Departments, who does not want his name in the news, Esimone’s lackey, Ikechebelu has been going round meeting the heads of departments, blackmailing them that he made them HODs, hence it is their turn to reciprocate his goodwill by voting him as the Acting Vice-Chancellor during the purported Senate meeting of 8th May.

It is to be noted that it is only the Governing Council of a university that has the powers to appoint a university Vice-Chancellor, either in substantive position or acting capacity, and in the absence of a governing council, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria who doubles as a visitor to all federal government owned tertiary institutions, would make the appointment through the Minister of education. The desperation by Esimone to bypass the President’s authority in this instance is therefore curious and unprecedented.

Meantime, the university community has become restive following this development as many academics and non-teaching staff of the university are spoiling for war, threatening to resist any illegality in the process of selecting a Vice-Chancellor for the university.