RSUST V-C appointment: Go to court, Amaechi tells ASUU


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September 3, 2012 | 12:52 am

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By JIMITOTA ONOYUME

PORT HARCOURT—There are signs that the crisis over appointment of Professor Barineme Fakae as Acting Vice-Chancellor of Rivers State University of Science and Technology, RSUST, may linger, following weekend’s reported comments by Governor Chibuike Amaechi to Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, to challenge the appointment in court.

It will be recalled that Governor Amaechi recently appointed Prof. Fakae as Acting Vice Chancellor of the university at the end of his term as substantive Vice Chancellor of the institution, an action that sparked off protests by lecturers of the university.

Lecturers in the university have been on strike in the last three weeks over the appointment.

The national body of ASUU, last week, had declared a one-day solidarity strike in support of RSUST-ASUU’s action, an order that was observed in most public universities across the country.

Speaking, weekend, in Berlin, Germany, Governor Amaechi said the lecturers were free to challenge his action in court. He said he acted within the confines of the state’s law governing the university when, at the expiration of his tenure, he re-appointed the institution’s Vice Chancellor as acting VC pending when a substantive Vice Chancellor would be appointed.

The governor said the law governing the university allowed a Vice Chancellor to serve another three years at the end of his first term