By Tobias Lengnan Dapam
Baring last minute changes, a new Vice-Chancellor for the University of Maiduguri (Unimaid) will emerge on Tuesday, May 20, when the varsity’s Council meets to take a final decision on the VC’s selection process.
The Unimaid’s Joint Council and Senate Selection Board had late last month in Abuja, interviewed11 candidates who had applied to replace the current VC, Professor Mala M. Daura, who is due to leave office on June 2.
But sources close to the selection board alleged that the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of the varsity, Alhaji Lawan Bukar Marguba, halted the selection process, saying he had received a petition against one of the contenders, Professor Ibrahim Njodi.
Our sources revealed that of the 11 candidates interviewed for the VC slot, Prof. Njodi of the Faculty of Education in the same university came tops, having scored 90.1%, while Prof. Isa Hussaini Marte of the
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science, also in the university, came second with 71.2%.
Prof. Abubakar Kundiri of the Faculty of Agriculture, Unimaid, scored 69.5%, thereby emerging third. Other contenders were Prof. Ibrahim Iliya, 66.3%; Prof. Umar Sandabe, 62.8%; Prof. Yagani Kaarta, 61.3%; and Prof. Ibrahim B. Goni, 56.8%. The other candidates were Prof. Yakubu Bila, 52.6%; Prof. Sheriff Modu, 52.4%; Prof. Bukar Bababe, 51.6%; and Prof. Tijani El-Miskin, 47.8%.
Our reporter reliably learned that the Unimaid Council, which met on Tuesday in Abuja, has set up a panel to investigate the anonymous petition against Prof. Njodi, and would reconvene on the 20th of this month, to consider the report and announced its decision on the choice of a vice chancellor for the university.
It is expected that once he is cleared, Prof. Njodi will be appointed VC of the university for the next five years.
Journalists were barred from the venue of the meeting, as our reporter learned that the university’s Council chairman had instructed security operatives to arrest any non-Council member sighted around the venue.
Our reporter further learnt that the Chairman of the Unimaid chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Dr. Musa Abdullahi, had met with Marguba ahead of Tuesday’s meeting.
Although details of the meeting between Marguba and the ASUU chairman were not known, sources said the union leader had among others, submitted to the Council chairman, the resolution of last week’s ASUU meeting, on “the need to ensure due process and not compromise merit” in the process of selecting a new vice chancellor for the university.
However, efforts to reach Marguba to comment on some of the issues and allegations against him failed, as he neither answered calls to his cell-phone nor responded to text message forwarded to him.
