MICHAEL OKPARA UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE, UMUDIKE... THE LIES AND THE DECEITS

Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike under Prof. Edoga is now one of the most peaceful universities in Nigeria and for any normal person to say that trouble is brewing there is laughable.

There was an attempt by few self seeking, morally bankrupt, short sighted and unrepentant mischief makers in the guise of “Concerned ASUU members MOUAU chapter” to deliberately distort information with the sole intent of deceiving the unsuspecting public and more than 99.9 percent of the unbiased members of ASUU members and other unions in Michael Okpara university of Agriculture, Umudike two weeks ago with a mindless and fraudulent publication of outright falsehood in some national dailies.

Under normal circumstances and in keeping with ASUU tradition, our posture would have been that of keeping quiet as the old adage says “that silence is the best answer to a fool” but most of us who are members of ASUU-MOUAU have decided to break our silence since this handful of mischief makers that we suspect are headed by the suspended ASUU- MOUAU chairperson have continued to misrepresent and embarrass our dear union and have been hiding under the union to pursue personal agenda and have also used the union as a weapon to attack our vice chancellor and other members of staff who they perceive as their enemies (whether real or imagined). They also want to hide under the union to avert being brought to book for their evil activities and disregard to extant laws of the university.

For the avoidance of doubt and for the records, we the members of ASUU-MOUAU chapter state as follows:

1. That we have a very cordial relationship with our Vice chancellow Professor Hilary Odo Edoga.
2. That ASUU-MOUAU is not in court with the vice chancellor and has no intentions of going to court whatsoever since there is no need for such action.
3. That there are laid down procedures in ASUU to address any problem concerning the union and not going to the press to spread falsehood and tarnish the hard earned image of ASUU as a union.
4. That we support the developmental strides of the vice chancellor and all attempts by the VC to make Michael Okpara University of Agriculture one of the best universities in Nigeria.
5. That we have confidence in our vice chancellor and as such pass a vote of confidence on him.
6. That the welfare of members of ASUU and other unions in the university are well taken care of since the VC is not owing anybody any salaries or allowances
7. That the members of the union are already conducting investigations to confirm the identity of faceless “concerned ASUU-MOUAU members” for appropriate sanctions.

The insinuation that there is trouble regarding accommodation fees in Michael okpara university is unmbelieveable. Before the regime of Prof. Edoga, the university had about three hostels for both males and females. Upon assumption of office, he (Edoga) built ten (10) new and standard hostels and because of the increase in admission quota by the NUC, the hostel was oversubscribed and some of the students were not accommodated in those new hostels. 

These set of students were supposed to be accommodated in the NDDC prototype hostel but for the little hitch in the handover of the hostel to the university administration (this has been done now). The students will be given accommodation in the NDDC hostel and some people have been refunded while many of the students knowing the advantages of staying in those new hostels where there is water and electricity 24 hours (since the hostels have bore holes and stand by generators) have opted to use the money for accommodation in the new hostel next semester starting September, 2015.

Before assumption of office by Prof. Edoga, the admission quota of the university was less than 2000 students but the monumental infrastructural development in the university, the NUC has consistently increased the admission quota over the years. This has led to the establishment of what we prefer to call campus 2 across the bridge but it should be noted that there is no university in Nigeria that is self sufficient in infrastructure, otherwise there would have been no need for the needs assessment jointly done by the ASUU and federal government across Nigerian universities in the recent past.

In one of the write ups of this faceless individuals, the vice chancellor was accused of recruiting and sponsoring only his relatives but our investigation shows otherwise and the records available and obtainable from Michael Okpara university of Agriculture, Umudike 2013/2014 annual report shows that from 2011-2014, 237 members of staff have benefitted from the TETfund short term and long term trainings including international conferences.

The list is contained in the link TETFund List

As can be seen from the list the people from the VC’s state (Enugu) judging from their surnames constitute less than 2 percent of the total number of beneficiaries. The monies given to them have been removed for security purposes. Also there are more names for 2015.

The VC was purported to have recruited more than 2000 workers in 4 years. The question is, what is the total number of the workforce in MOUAU which has existed since 1992. Most of the programmes that had interim accreditation were because of staff strength generally and severe lack of senior academic staff in particular and this is a vice chancellor working hard to bridge the gap and a group of visionless academics are kicking against that move by complaining he has employed many people.

If among the purported 2000 staff recruits in four years, there are some relations of the vice chancellor, the issue should be whether they are qualified and not that they should suffer deprivation because they are related to the VC.

Another pertinent question is, after that monumental recruitment by Prof. Edoga since 2011, is he owing or has he ever owed any salary in the university? The answer is NO.

If the vice chancellor have recruited so many people since 2011 and have been consistently paying them, simple logic should have made his detractors to understand that he should be congratulated and celebrated for helping to minimize the scourge of unemployment confronting this country.

The authors of these mischievous write-ups seem to have lost sight of the workings of a university or were they just blinded by the cancerous nature of envy or is it jealousy? We ask this question because of the following:

1. The award of contracts in a university is not the sole responsibility of the vice chancellor but goes through the directorate of physical planning; through the UPPC and UTB of which most of the members are ASUU members.
2. Staff promotions are mostly handled by the registry department after going through departmental appraisal committees, college appraisal committees or unit appraisal committees, University appraisal committee (UAC) and Appointment and promotions committee (A and PC) of the governing council (made up of both internal and external members). In all these committees, you have professors and senior academics as members. So why is the promotion of staff blamed on the vice chancellor by these faceless individuals?
3. Also postgraduate programmes and interpretations of postgraduate rules rest on the Dean and staff of postgraduate school and different postgraduate boards of various departments and colleges and not the vice chancellors.
4. The case of Prof. Echebiri as we know it is that the vice chancellor has no powers to recall a suspended staff single handedly. Prof. Echebiri was suspended in the previous administration. He (Echebiri) wrote a protest letter to the governing council and after due investigations and deliberations, the council in its wisdom decided to recall Prof. Echebiri. We do not think in ASUU that Prof. Edoga should act in disobedience to constituted authority (The university governing council) by not carrying out the council decision.
5. The disillusioned individuals having acknowledged that the vice chancellor of MOUAU, Prof. Edoga built ten (10) new hostels with internally generated revenue (which most of us did not know existed before him), instead of praising him and encouraging other vice chancellors of other universities to emulate him have listed such uncommon feat as one of his sins. This to us is the height of hypocrisy.
6. The payment of tax is a constitutional obligation of every citizen and we know that tax issues have been a source of constant squabbles between the university and Abia State government. The implementation of the tax laws of Abia state by the bursary department of MOUAU cannot be viewed by any sensible human being as misconduct except those beclouded by evil machinations born out of personal rancor. However, we understood that concessions have been made by other state governors to university staff in their states and we are also aware that the vice chancellor, in one of the family meetings, has constituted a committee comprising of representatives from all the unions in the university to liaise with the state government to amicably resolve the tax issues.

Let us put it on record that since professor Edoga took over as the VC of MOUAU in 2011:

1. There has not been any strike by any of the unions
2. There have never been any students demonstration
3. Cult activities have been brought to its lowest ebb.
4. No salaries have been owed.
5. No allowances have been owed.
6. Nobody’s promotion has been denied or delayed
7. No promotion arrears have been owed
8. All the roads in the university have now been tarred 
9. Monumental transformation of the university have taken place (both human and material)
10. Most of the lecturers now have offices
11. New programmes have been introduced
12. There are a lot of collaborations with many universities all over the world
13. The university now has international visibility
14. Many of our members (ASUU) now go overseas for their MSc., Ph.D, short trainings and international conferences to mention just a few.

WHAT ELSE CAN A UNION ASK FOR?

From the foregoing, it is now clear that trouble in the university only exists in the figments of some trouble seekers imaginations or may be those propagandists are disappointed because of the peaceful atmosphere in MOUAU and wants to instigate chaos from which they normally benefit from in the previous administrations.

However, we the members of ASUU MOUAU are suspecting that the masterminds of this mischief may be some academic staff who constitute less than 0.1 percent of the academic work force and we don’t want to believe that Dr. U.A.U Onyebinama, the suspended chairman of ASUU- MOUAU who was suspended by the university authority for gross misconduct prejudicial to the interest of the university as provided by decree 48 of 1992 as amended is one of them. He also faced various committees set up by the university senate which according to the Exam Ethics Marshals International confirmed clear cases of transgression against him which include among other things, gross abuse of office, manipulation of examination results which tantamounts to examination fraud and disregard of the extant senate guidelines and rules (Daily Sun, Monday June 20, 2015 page 58 and July 7, 2015).

The members also do not want to believe that among this group is one professor who is a member of ASUU national and who wants to be the national chairman of ASUU at all costs. It will shock most of us if inordinate ambitions and personal vendetta should becloud the professor’s judgment and decency and rob him of the honour for telling the truth and fair representation or does he think unwarranted attacks on the constituted authority of the university will present him as fearless person and boost his chances of becoming the ASUU national president? Well, we wish him good luck.

The members will also be baffled if two of the suspects among these agents of destabilization are two directionless senior academics in CNREM and CCSS (one of them is facing disciplinary action in the university now).

For now, let us still treat them as suspects but investigations are on-going after which the names and the antecedents of those involved will be made public and appropriate sanctions meted out to them.

In the said write up the shameless mischief makers even made a disgusting and laughable suggestion of a visitation panel. This shows that they are still basking in the euphoria that they still have the magic wand to deceive everybody all the time. The visitor of the university (past and present) knows that Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike have a vice chancellor who is an erudite scholar, a quintessential gentleman, an accomplished academic and administrator, a detribalized Nigerian and a great achiever who is contributing in no small measures in repositioning education in Nigeria.

We want at this juncture to thank the chairman of the governing council Prof. Anya O. Anya and the rest of the council members for the mature manner they are handling the affairs of the university and for their insistence that misconduct in any form must be punished no matter whose ox is gored (union chairman or not)

We also want to use this opportunity to invite the general public to visit Michael University of Agriculture, Umudike to see things for themselves as the developmental strides of Prof. Hilary Odo Edoga cannot be chronicled adequately using the pages of the newspapers even when you want to use a whole year’s publication.

We also believe that the shameless mischief makers will one day be brought to book.

SIGNED:      ASUU MEMBERS

                       MICHEAL OKPARA UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE, UMUDIKE