When Federal University Lokoja was created in February, 2011, among other eleven universities, it was well known that there would be many contentious issues bestriding its birth, enough to make the new university a microcosm of Kogi State.
Kogi State itself has been too slow in its socioeconomic and political progress because of its predilection for sentimentality. The State is continuously caught in some narrow values underpinned by ethno-religious considerations.
It was therefore easily predictable that an institution as sensitive as the university was going to be fed with a good dose of the existing political incoherence.
Upon the creation of the university, the first politics that threatened its establishment was the politics of location. It is well known how the Okun people wanted the university to be cited in Kabba, the same way that the Igalas wanted to donate the present state university to that cause.
At a point, Ajaokuta was also considered. That the university was eventually situated in Lokoja didn’t happen as an easy decision.
When the task of starting a university fell on Professor Rafindadi, he found a dependable ally in Professor Patrick Audu, who in turn facilitated the inclusion of late Professor Josiah Sunday Aliyu (then a retired professor).
The day to day running of the university revolved around this trio. Subsequently, the establishment of two faculties of science headed by Professor Patrick Audu, and that of Arts and Social Sciences headed by late Professor J.S. Aliyu did not come to many as a surprise.
Then, there was a well trusted academic, now Professor M.S. Audu, who served as the unofficial principal assistant to the VC.
Though unassuming, humble, a workaholic, and of an impeccable character, he was nevertheless a counterbalancing force to the duo of Professors Patrick Audu and J.S. Aliyu. There were other political gladiators within the system, but these three were well known as the compass of the pioneer VC.
The VC was well known for his populism, altruism and above all, his welfarism. This no doubt endeared him to the university community and its environs. Interestingly, while the VC was struggling with the then Dr M.S. Audu to give the university a spectacular take off, there were schemings amongst the other gladiators.
The survival war was well orchestrated, and the common weapon was tribal sentiment. In the midst of this confusion, the pioneer VC found it difficult to appoint a deputy vice Chancellor.
Furthermore, there were divisions amongst and between those who had migrated from ABU Zaria and Bayero University, Kano to Federal University Lokoja. While the pioneer VC came from A.B.U. Zaria, the pioneer Registrar came from Bayero University Kano.
The position of the Registrar was considered very strategic to the Ebiras, where she hails from. So, the lgala, Ebira and Okun agenda which had been the dominant factor in Kogi politics started rearing its ugly head in the university and tearing its affairs apart. In the twilight of Rafindadi’s VCship, the horizon of rivalry, hatred, fear and suspicion had widened so dangerously.
The pioneer VC recognized that he was locked up in a complex political setting and operated with tact diplomacy and an open door policy until he was able to escape.
The general attitude to life caused by power struggle and survivalism did not abate and had continued into the second era, the regime of Professor Angela Freeman Miri. Problems were already waiting for her, and rather than assuage them, she had hit the ground fighting.
As a professor of English literature, she knew so well the problem of Okwonkwo in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. She knew too well that she was not going to be able to defeat a whole community.
But she had the audacity of courage, she like Okwonkwo was going to fight even if she would have to hang herself, and it didn’t matter whether things were going to fall apart. So, she ran her regime that was rancour laden.
The division which had occurred in the regime of her predecessor widened radically in her time. There was fear and suspicion everywhere: lies, egregious calumnies and petitions filled the air.
She aggravated the already combustible situation by being a narcissist and not a populist or a welfarist like her predecessor. She constantly claimed that the school had no money and she also had no power like her predecessor who operated like a sole administrator as there was no council in his time.
But the university community only took this with a pinch of salt as she was regularly petitioned for maladministration, profligacy, and financial sleaze. She fought back notoriously, but she was never happy for one moment.
The joy of that exalted office frittered away in agony. Many believed that if she did not weep in the open, she probably did that in the inner recesses of her heart.
The tears that will not drop will certainly ache the heart. The climax of her humiliation was in her departure as workers in their large numbers came to Adankolo campus to sweep her regime away. Many others carried obituary fliers openly. Her regime ended this way.
The aim of the foregoing has been to paint the background of the character of FUL as a citadel of unending bickering, rancour, envy, treachery, illusion, betrayal, gossip, and petitions. In fact, many idle, self seeking, power hungry or power drunk individuals have become professional purveyors of damnable falsehood. Such bedbugs have resorted to flaunting their ideas as ethical standard.
The university has a history of legions of these delicate minute flies filling the air either at the beginning or in the twilight of a regime, hovering over wheat – fields or shrubbery, with some dazzling ism and skism, playing the Adankolo or the Felele devil.
FUL is a young institution embedded in a volatile and intense tribal and power rivalry. VC after VC must have issues to contend with, even if a prophet is lifted to lead the university.
The story of Professor Akinwumi, the incumbent Vice Chancellor
Early this year, a young, astute, humble and indefatigable scholar, Professor Olayemi Akinwumi, emerged Vice Chancellor from amongst over eighty contenders.
This is a scholar of international repute, and his undisguised humility is enough to do all the magic that the exalted office requires. But the hunters, who have been at their games since the inception of the university, will not hesitate to mistake the lamb for a dangerous beast. ‘It must be killed’ syndrome is now orchestrated with reckless abandon. Some of those who were in the bandwagon for the VCship wherein Professor Akinwumi emerged winner, will not be patient for a single term of five years.
I used to think that the university is a model for the larger society. What if the university was to have the entire political space that the politicians have, then we would be faced with a civil war after every election.
Here is a man who goes from house to house begging people whom he considers strategic to the system to join hands with him to build a virile, reputable and internationally competitive university, yet, people who are lost in sin and shame want to drag him down.
In less than one year of his assumption of office, a flurry of petitions powered by renegades fills everywhere.
It is painful that urchins and miscreants are also struggling to thrive in a university system. Those who are mudslinging an innocent man, whether they are on revenge mission – and which revenge- are hopelessly misinformed and misguided. I remember that the first assignment that this VC took upon himself was to call upon a truce between PASUU and ASUU. He made it known on arrival that he was not a believer in divide and rule tactics. He openly begged the internal members who wanted to be VC to join hands with him. What else was he to do? Being the first indigenous VC of this esteemed university, from Okun axis, he has chosen an lgala and an Ebira deputies.
What else is he to do? But the devil cannot be pacified. Whoever God has appointed to become the VC shall become without efforts, and whoever has not been appointed by God can become a worm in the woods, but will never get it. Leadership is from God and not by intrigues. When two animals are locked in a prolonged struggle for food, it becomes very easy for the interlopers.
The way the Kogi indigenes are trying to reduce FUL to the narrow politics of Kogi State might just give away the institution to foreigners. It is a pity!
Who does not know that for nearly ten years, FUL was behind its peers created the same time, grappling with eleven courses.
In the final days of Angela, additional courses were created without administrative and legal backing, just to rationalize the dubious employment made then. Who will deny the efforts made by Professor Akinwumi to regularize and increase the courses in the university moving from JAMB high table to NUC?
One of his sins now is that he moved the students and staff who already constituted nuisance in town to the permanent site. Whatever the difficulties encountered as a result of this movement, he should be commended rather than vilified.
Even when individuals move to their personal homes newly built, there are bound to be challenges.
The people who are lost in mischief and egregious calumny will not tarry a while to consider his giant strides within so short a time.
He has reactivated most of the buildings in Adankolo campus, from the hostels, to the clinic and to the classrooms. Evil has blinding and deafening effects. The maligners of this sublime moment cannot see or hear. The evil minority will always allow their emptiness, hollowness, malice and envy to fester.
What about the units created or empowered or activated? What is the mandate of the quality assurance unit headed by a professor? Is it not alien to our institution? The university printing house? He has put on his entrepreneurial map, some ideas that will soon come to life such as bottled water, bread and other productions.
Even if the traducers begin to measure the time for him, is it a bad idea to dream?
There is an allegation that the VC turned the university to a beggarly institution by giving honorary awards to undeserving Nigerians for pecuniary benefits.
The petitioner failed to state his own parameter for university honorary awards, or the list of those he considered deserving. What was the VC to use the pecuniary gain for? To pay his rent or his children’s school fees? What a pity!
It is laughable that one of the frivolous petitions written classifies Professor M.S. Audu, the current Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academics) as “the defacto vice Chancellor.” The full nudity of the objective of the petition is seen here. It is underpinned by a notorious parochialism and reckless misadventure.
In coming to such conclusion, the pedigree and the personality of the petitioner is made bare by his callous, porous and jaundiced sense of analysis. He may well be a sick canary bird. For the avoidance of doubt, Professor M.S. Audu has a history of relationship with the present VC. If you find God’s favour and you don’t first look in the direction of your neighbour or friend, may be you will go for strangers or your enemies.
Those who know Professor M.S. Audu very well, know that he is not one to lobby for a position. He would rather reject juicy appointment if he did not find a cause to accept it. Known for his religiosity and Spartan discipline, in fact, while he held sway in KSU Anyigba, some of his friends/disciples constituted themselves into the School of M.S.Audu’s ldeology.
In terms of university administration, he is an asset to any Vice Chancellor. Professor Angela conceived Professor M.S. Audu as an adversary throughout her tenure as Vice Chancellor, but she never hesitated to deploy him whenever opportunity availed itself.
Before Akinwumi, he had meritoriously served about five Vice Chancellors. He has an unimpeachable background as an oracle of university administration. If you find a willing and able subordinate, will you not use him? It is common place to find bosses use their subordinates to accomplish their mission. Where do you find a commander on the battlefront?
In one of the lies maliciously peddled by the petitioner, Ebira people were said to be waiting arms in the air for Akinwumi to fall so that they could grab power. Someone has said a man is a de facto boss, and in another beat you say that the same man wants to become the boss.
What does he lack as a de facto boss? Sentiment has beclouded the petitioner to the extent of a mental hara-kiri.
We should give this young man a chance so he will be able to lift our university from the woods. He will not be there forever. Another day will soon break. It is unwholesome to turn everything in Kogi State to instrument of tribal war, or the struggle for power for selfish interest.
The fire next time…
THE PROBITY GROUP
Saying it as it is.