Reps Grill Minister Over Sack Of 13 VCs

The House of Representatives Committee on Education on Tuesday queried the Minister of Education Alhaji Adamu Adamu over the sack of 13 Vice Chancellors urging him to reverse the sack of 5 Vice Chancellors (VCs) of the 13 newly established federal universities.
Chairman of the House Committee, Rep Aminu Suleiman at a meeting between the committee and the Minister noted that there were serious concerns by education stakeholders on the manner of removal of the five VCs of the new federal universities by the Minister.
He informed the Minister that there were pockets of mass protests on the matter which prompted the House to adopted a motion mandating the Committee to investigate the matter and report back to it.
The Minister in his response however said that what his ministry did was to follow the provision of the law on the matter adding that it was important for it to take that decision.
He told the Committee that the past administration of President Goodluck Jonathan established these universities indiscriminately and that the sacking of the five VCs in question was because they were on illegal appointments as those institutions were established illegally.
On the sack of the 5 VCs he said that the President only exercised his powers under Sec 3 sub-sections 6 and 7 of the Universities Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1999 as the Visitor to the universities to remove these VCs.
The Committee Chairman was not however satisfied with the Minister’s position saying  that the law is clear by the provision of the cited Act that a Vice-Chancellor can only be removed on the grounds of misconduct or inability to perform the functions of his/her office.
He said “for you to tell me that there are no laws governing these 12 universities is wrong. The only thing you can tell me is that the law is not gazetted. To that extent it is wrong to have acted on that basis”.
A former Minister of State for Education Hon Aishatu Dukku who is a Committee member expressed concerns about the minister’s action saying that the minister has not given any cogent reason for that action.
Other Committee  members also expressed dissatisfaction over the sack pointing out that the ministry should ‘ve waited for the tenure of the sacked VCs to expire before the sack.
Alabi a professor and former university teacher described the entire exercise as one done with impunity.
The Committee asked the Minister to re-appear before it on Tuesady March 8 2016 with hard facts and more convincing reasons for the sack adding that it has two weeks to submit its report to the entire House in plenary.

Nneka Amaechi-Nnadi, Abuja