The Medics Alumni Association of Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK) have called for the withdrawal and review of the advertisement for the appointment of Vice-Chancellor of the University adding that the requirements were discriminatory.
They made the call on Monday, October 7, 2024 at a press briefing in Abuja.
In his address, President of the Association, Prof. Afiadigwe Evaristus informed that they had addressed a letter to the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of UNIZIK regarding the advert for the appointment of a Vice-Chancellor, when they noticed some discrepancies and some discriminatory contents in the advert of Vanguard newspaper, September 12th, 2024.
Evaristus explained that the UNIZIK Medics Alumni Association, represents all the medical graduates of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, both within and outside the country.
According to him, the Association held a meeting and made observations bordering on breach of the University’s Act and discriminatory requirements for the Vice Chancellor position:
“There were a lot of breaches of the provisions of the Act of the University as made in 1992 and the amendments subsequently.
“Notably is that the Council is mandated to specify the qualities of the candidates that would be appointed as the Vice-Chancellor, but erroneously, the advert, as we have it, was focused on the minimum skills and personal achievements which are not supported by law”, he said.
Evaristus added, “the second is the discriminatory requirement, that advert excluded members of the medical professions.
“We all know that the medical professionals grow in their career, running a six-year MBBS, then if you’re able to pass the entrance exam, primaries we call it, you enter a residency training and you stay six to ten years depending on the course, and after that you may get employed in the university if you want to be in academics, and you continue to grow, do your promotions, then you become a professor.
“This advert did not recognize this fellowship as a qualification to vie for the office.
“That is actually very unfortunate. In a university where the first Vice-Chancellor was a medical fellow, the revered late professor Festus Nwankwo, who laid an impeccable foundation, a solid foundation, for the growth of that university, and it is on that foundation that this university has grown to this extent.
“And then at this point in our time, where we have a lot of medical graduates, medical professors in various fields, people who possess medical fellowship, we are now excluded from contesting the position”.
He argued that the University instead, stipulated the possession of a PhD. “PhD applies to other academic professionals or disciplines, and we know that PhD is a four-year course, at most three to four years, depending on, you know, some places it could be shorter, and then you are excluding somebody who did a six to ten years program, and we are all lecturers.
“In fact, at the insertion of a career in the university, if you have a medical fellowship, you are started as a Lecturer 1, but if you have a PhD, you start from Lecturer 2, and have to stay like three years before you get to Lecturer 1, and that shows that the medical fellowship is superior to the PhD”, he said.
The Association President however lamented that, “the advert did not even recognize the Fellowship, did not even equate it with the PhD, and did not even see it as an equivalent. And what it means is that members of the medical profession, clinical lecturers, will never be qualified to aspire to become Vice Chancellor if this trend is allowed to stand”.
The disgruntled Professor further noted that there were other preconditions that were presented in the advert that were novel.
“When you say that somebody has to attract a grant of a specific amount, in that advert it was clearly written 400 million before he’s qualified to apply. We find that very unfortunate for a standard of high learning, for an institution where excellence should be placed above everything, and we are presenting it as if our university is on a cash and carry basis, and that it goes to the highest bidder.
“And if there were going to be any change to the status of the university, it should pass through the normal protocol from the Senate, Council, and it has to have the endorsement of the visitor, who is the President of the Federal Government of Nigeria.
“We are not aware that anything like that happened before the change. Now, being dissatisfied, the Medical and Dental Consultants’ of Nigeria, NAUTH branch, most of whom are clinical lecturers, has called out the members on strike and the students of Nnamdi Azikiwe University are currently not in class because of this.
He however stated that the Association was not interested in who emerges Vice- Chancellor but wanted the right thing to be done:
“We want to state for avoidance of doubt, that the alumni is not interested in who emerges the Vice-Chancellor at the end of the day. Our concern is that the process should be free, should be fair, should be equitable, and should not exclude anybody, any discipline, and in particular, medical professionals who have paid their dues and risen to the high of their profession”, Evaristus said.
