MOUAU VC BREAKS SILENCE: REVEALS WHY
SOME OF THE VARSITY STAFF HAD TO BE
LAID OFF!!!
The Vice Chancellor of Michael Okpara
University, Prof. Francis Ogbonnya
Otunta,has finally opened up concerning the
allegation that he sacked over 500 staff of the
University who are mostly Abians. He also
revealed how and when most of them were
hired and the reasons they have to be
suspended, not actually sacked.
PRESS RELEASE ON THE LASPED TEMPORARY
APPOINTMENTS AT MICHAEL OKPARA
UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE, UMUDIKE,
(MOUAU) 400 PLUS
Ever since news broke that the 400 plus
people whose temporary appointments as
staff of this university had elapsed in
February, a lot of stories have been making
waves around it and they are mostly false.
Without fact-checking, the traditional media
outlets as well as social media platforms have
given credence to these wildly inaccurate
information, commonly ascribed to
“unconfirmed sources,” by publishing them.
Instead of the obfuscated facts and distorted
reality, solely aimed at whipping up raw
emotions and assassinating innocent people’s
characters, here are the unadulterated facts.
The total number of people who where
suspended is over 400, not 500 as some media
have reported.
Here is why they were suspended.
Everybody employed in a Federal University is
hired on temporary basis and has to undergo
what’s called regularization within a year
(before becoming full time) failure of which
leads to the elapsing of the contract.
Vice-Chancellor Francis Otunta’s predecessor,
Prof. Hilary Edeoga, between November 2015
and February 2016, hired over 400 people
even though there was already a Vice-
Chancellor designate for the university and
also knowing full well there was no fund to
pay them. Prof. Edeoga didn’t care because
these workers were never going to be his
problem.
If the university had a need for that number
of staff (constituting over 12% of the entire
staff strength), it should have advertised and
there should have been Council’s approval.
What the university ended up with, as a
result, was a bloated staff. For example, the
ICT Lab, which can be manned by four
people, ended up with a staff of over 25. So,
the university became saddled with a lot of
unqualified and redundant staff.
Rumours have it that most of these people
paid huge sums of money and sex for jobs. It
is not in our nature to endorse or peddle
rumours. We are only interested in facts.
These facts must be glaring and verifiable.
So, we choose to ignore these rumours.
Worse still, the university is also burdened by
several threatened lawsuits as a result of
multiple awards of the same contracts to
different contractors who are still being owed
by the previous administration. We have our
hands full putting out fires. And this
particular fire was single-handedly started
and created by the previous vice-chancellor.
The vice-chancellor, Prof. Otunta, has done
nothing but negotiate and advocate, bending
over backwards to avoid the unfortunate
outcome we have today. It was at his
discretion to honor the terms of the
temporary appointments that had lapsed but,
on a humanitarian basis, he decided to bear
the burden pending when Council comes and
takes a decision.
His decision cost the rest of the university
staff 25 per cent of their salary for the past
few months. Ordinarily, the 400 plus people
had no entitlement to salaries from the
university from the date their one year
temporary appointment contracts lapsed. And
the university had no commitment to offer
them a chance of renewal. It should have
been a termination but not a suspension. But
Prof. Otunta, after Council had instructed him
to terminate them, went pleading with
Council to temper justice with mercy and
created an opportunity for the qualified ones
who had worked hard and well to come back.
He also delayed implementing the Council’s
decision until the end of June so that the 400
plus people would get a June salary.
In the hierarchy of the university
administration, Council supervises
Management, including the Vice-Chancellor.
Management is duty bound to implement
Council’s decision. There is no possibility of
the Vice-Chancellor or anybody else to
disregard Council decision, especially in a
delicate matter like this.
In this case, Council is not to be blamed
because they are following the rules and
doing the right thing. Management cannot be
blamed because they are also following the
rules and obeying Council instructions. The
Vice-Chancellor can certainly not be blamed
because he had no say in 400 plus people
being hired for him to pay at a time when
the country is in recession and when there is
no apparent need for that size of staff
increase.
The rumour that Prof. Otunta has brought in
and hired about 100 people in the University
is totally unfounded and aimed at whipping
up negative emotions against the vice
chancellor. In about one year and a quarter
that Otunta has been vice chancellor, he has
only hired seven (7) persons to fill in arising
vacancies. He brought three (3) persons who
are in the university on secondment,
meaning that they are not even staff of the
University and would return back to their
original place of employment once they
complete their assignments.
Be assured that there is no conniving
between Vice-Chancellor Francis Otunta and
Council Chairman, Rt. Hon. Muhammadu
Lawal Zayyana, to sack people or make
people suffer on the basis of states of origin,
sex or whatever basis.
Therefore, the story that Vice-Chancellor
Otunta and Council Chairman Zayyana are
working in tandem to displace the
University’s Abia and Igbo staff with Hausas
is a fabrication purely aimed at maligning
these accomplished gentlemen.
Prof. Otunta is a renowned scientist,
administrator cum educationist extraordinaire
and a gentleman par excellence. He made
first class in mathematics at UNIBEN and
served for eight years as the Rector of the
Federal Polytechnic, Uwana in Afikpo, where
he excelled and left his mark, before getting
his new job. He plays by the books and
detests injustice of any form. He’s a far cry
from the monstrous picture some of the
media are painting of him.
Rt. Hon. Muhammadu Lawal Zayyana was an
acting Governor of Sokoto State, former
speaker of Sokoto House of Assembly,
commissioner for many years, a traditional
ruler who’s also the crown prince of the
Sokoto Caliphate. He’s the next in line to the
present Sultan. He’s a generous, simple,
humane human and doesn’t in any way,
shape or form fit the profile he has been
created of in some outlets in the wake of this
story.
Adanma Odefa
Head, Public Relations/Protocol Unit &
Spokesperson,
Michael Okpara University of Agriculture,
Umudike.Source https://mobile.facebook.com/abiapulsenews/photos/a.1975708219314871.1073741829.1727541520798210/1975963552622671/?type=3&refid=7&_ft_=qid.6441540738889468974%3Amf_story_key.760036660599308397%3Atop_level_post_id.316272795504310&__tn__=E