By Monday Eze, public affairs analyst and columnist with New Telegraph newspaper
The Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MD-CAN), a group that has both the Minister for Education and the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education among its members, has been at the center of the storm over the appointment of Prof. Benard Ifeanyi Odoh as the 7th substantive Vice Chancellor of Nnamdi Azikiwe University (Unizik), Awka. The association’s vociferous opposition to his appointment has raised grave concerns regarding the rule of law, the sanctity of court judgments, and the integrity of ongoing legal proceedings in Nigeria.
For the records, MD-CAN’s challenge to the qualifications of Prof. Odoh reflects a deeper issue regarding the qualifications for the office of Vice Chancellor. The National Universities Commission (NUC) has clearly established that a PhD is not equivalent to a Fellowship, a distinction that MD-CAN continues to contest. A federal government white paper released earlier this year explicitly clarified that an academic without a PhD is not qualified to be a member of the university senate. If an individual does not possess the necessary qualifications to even be a member of the Senate, how can such a person be applying to chair the Senate as the Vice Chancellor? Such a scenario would be a clear aberration and further demonstrates the misalignment between MD-CAN’s objections and the standards set by the NUC and the federal government. The flagrant violations surrounding the Minister’s actions, MD-CAN’s objections, and the ongoing legal issues, all point to a broader attempt to bypass due process and undermine the integrity of the university’s governance structure, all while disregarding the rule of law and established academic standards.
MD-CAN, allegedly leveraging its influence over the Minister for Education, has attempted to bypass the judgment of the National Industrial Court, Awka Division, by resorting to extra-legal means. This has created a situation where MD-CAN and its allies have flagrantly disregarded ongoing legal suits in which the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Justice, and the National Universities Commission (NUC) are defendants. The matter is still sub judice, yet MD-CAN has sought to act as though the judicial process has already been concluded, undermining the ongoing litigation and the role of the judiciary.
On 29th October 2024, the Governing Council of Unizik exercised its lawful authority to appoint Prof. Benard Odoh as Vice Chancellor, in strict compliance with the National Industrial Court’s order in Suit No. NICN/AWK/50/2024. The council derived its power from the university’s establishment Act, which grants it the authority to make such appointments. The council’s action was in full alignment with the court’s judgment, which required them to appoint a substantive Vice Chancellor to fill the vacant position. Along with the Vice Chancellor, the Registrar of the university, who is also a key figure in the administrative structure of the university, was also lawfully appointed. However, MD-CAN and the Minister of Education, dissatisfied with the appointment, allegedly sought to use their influence to procure an executive fiat from the presidency. This fiat purportedly aimed to remove both the Unizik Governing Council, the newly appointed Vice Chancellor, and the Registrar without due process or opportunity for them to be heard.
This action is not only a violation of the rule of law but also an affront to the principles of justice and fairness that are supposed to govern Nigeria’s legal system. Instead of respecting the ongoing legal proceedings and the duly issued court order, MD-CAN and the Minister have allegedly taken matters into their own hands, bypassing the law in favor of extrajudicial methods. This dangerous approach threatens the very foundations of Nigeria’s democracy and governance, especially when it involves manipulating the presidency to endorse such actions.
As if the disregard for the rule of law was not sufficient, the Minister of Education, in total disregard for the University Act, proceeded to purportedly appoint Professor Joseph Ikechebelu as the Acting Vice Chancellor of Unizik. The appointment of an Acting Vice Chancellor is strictly and solely within the purview of the Governing Council, as provided by the university’s governing laws. In his desperation for justification, the Minister referred to this purported appointment as the “reinstatement of Prof. Ikechebelu as Acting Vice Chancellor,” a title he was never appointed to in the first place. The fact was that at the expiration of the tenure of the immediate past Vice Chancellor, Prof. Esimone, Ikechebelu was merely asked to oversee the office of the Vice Chancellor pending the constitution of a new governing council. This temporary arrangement was never meant to be an “acting” appointment deserving reinstatement under any lawful guise.
Even if one were to accept, for the sake of argument, that the Unizik Governing Council made an error in the appointment, it is clear that this error cannot be rectified by further unlawful actions. The Minister for Education and MD-CAN cannot, through extrajudicial means, override the court’s judgment and the authority vested in the Unizik Governing Council. Furthermore, the actions of MD-CAN and the Minister of Education also contravene the ongoing legal suits, which involve key government agencies like the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Justice, and the NUC as defendants. Their disregard for these proceedings only compounds the unlawful nature of their actions.
The actions of MD-CAN in this matter are seen by majority of lawful Nigerians as bearing alarming similarities to those of Boko Haram, a terrorist organization known for its violence and its blatant disregard for the rule of law. Like Boko Haram, MD-CAN is accused of placing its narrow, self-serving interests above the national interest, while undermining the institutions that hold Nigeria’s democracy together. By allegedly taking the law into their own hands and resorting to extrajudicial methods, MD-CAN and the Minister for Education have allegedly demonstrated a willingness to destabilize Nigeria’s legal system and undermine its democratic institutions in pursuit of their goals.
Further in pursuit of their insipidly desperate objective to blackmail, intimidate and hound the judiciary, judicial officers and the parties before it, members of MD-CAN now appear to be hiding under some amorphous pseudonyms to write distasteful articles against the judiciary. One of such baseless piece was very recently published in the GUARDIAN newspaper wherein they tried to fault all actions and processes taken by parties in Court in the consent judgement of an Awka Industrial Court.
The fulcrum of their emotional outbursts, call it blackmail and you may not be outrightly wrong, is that the parties in the suit did not fulfill the judicial mandate in arriving at the consent judgement. Strangely however, neither the same association nor their numerous and embittered members have deemed it fit, proper or needful to approach the same Court or any Court of Law in our land for that matter either to appeal or join issues with the parties in Court and possibly air their grievances or misgivings if genuinely any. As Medical practitioner chauvinists, they should have known better that the law is not ‘ Aluta Continua ‘ and neither is ‘ Aluta Continua ‘ the law to so senselessly want to lord over their emotions on the unsuspecting Nigerian public with jaundiced facts and views.
The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, is explicit in its commitment to the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary. Section 6(1) of the Constitution vests judicial powers in the courts, while Section 287(1) mandates that decisions of the Supreme Court must be enforced by all authorities and persons. The Supreme Court has long recognized that the judiciary is the guardian of the Constitution, and any action that undermines its authority is a threat to the rule of law and the integrity of the state.
The Minister’s unilateral purported appointment of Prof. Ikechebelu, which was not sanctioned by the Governing Council, is a blatant violation of the university’s governing laws and an attempt to usurp the powers vested in the Council. This further compounds the unlawful actions surrounding the appointment of the Acting Vice Chancellor and radically undermines the legitimacy of the governing structure of the university. The actions of MD-CAN and the Minister for Education in procuring an executive fiat to dismiss both the Unizik Governing Council, the newly appointed Vice Chancellor, and the Registrar are seen as a direct violation of the judiciary’s authority. These actions not only threaten the rule of law but also risk entrenching a dangerous culture of impunity and lawlessness.
Patriotic Nigerians are calling for the immediate restoration of both the Governing Council, the Vice Chancellor, and the Registrar to their positions until the court’s judgment is reviewed by a superior court and all related5 lawsuits are resolved within the constitutional framework of the Nigerian judiciary. They also demand that the federal government take swift and decisive action to address the apparent disregard for the law and the ongoing legal proceedings by MD-CAN and its co-travelers.
At the core of this issue is the principle that the rule of law and the sanctity of court judgments must be respected and upheld. Failure to do so would set a dangerous precedent and undermine the very fabric of Nigeria’s democracy and constitutional order. It is imperative that all individuals and institutions, including the Minister for Education and MD-CAN, adhere to the law in order to safeguard Nigeria’s democratic future.
Monday Eze, a public affairs analyst and columnist with New Telegraph newspaper, wrote from Abuja
