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3 hours ago
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“Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty” – Henry Martyn Robert
I begin this rejoinder with a reflection on the above apt quote from an American soldier-officer and general, Engineer, and author, Henry Martyn Robert. This quote emphasizes that where there is no law, even when everyone does what they think is right, only the tiniest bit of actual liberty will eventually exist. In Robert’s thoughtful and analytical disposition, the reason is because some will exert more influence than others, and opinions as to what is right will vary from person to person. This will lead, at best to a benevolent dictatorship, and at worst, chaos incarnate.
It has become situationally ideal to join issues with the author (s) of the above pedestrian piece who hid under the cloak of a certainly non-existent “Moshood Diya” to vent their rather unprintable and egregious ignoramus on the subject matter of the dissolution of Governing Council of Nnamdi Azikiwe University and the blatant removal of Professor Benard Odoh as the Seventh substantive Vice-Chancellor of the said institution now pending for the legal adjudications of our various Courts of competent jurisdictions.
To inject a deep sense of retrospection into the minds of the ‘anonymous author’ (s) who adopted “Lawyer Moshood Diya”, it would be needful to recall that following the appointment of Professor Odoh as a Vice-Chancellor on the 29th of October 2024, the UNIZIK Chapter of Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU) had immediately instituted a court case at the Federal Industrial Court, Awka using one Professor Stanley Udedi, another, Professor Greg Obiamalu and the union’s Chairman, ( NAU) as plaintiffs to challenge the said appointment, accusing the Governing Council of violations and seeking nullification of the appointment thereto. In another case, they also challenged the process and appointment of Professor Odoh as VC in a suit sponsored by ASUU at Federal High Court Abuja using both Professor Fr. Obi Oguejiofor and Prof. Ikechukwu Ekwealor as plaintiffs.
They can also be further reminded that on the 8th of November, 2024, the plaintiffs at Abuja brought an application seeking to join Professor Odoh as one of the defendants in the case. The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, presided over by His Lordship, Honourable Justice Inyang Ekwo eventually sat on the 13th of November, considered their (ASUU and all the parties’) prayers and adjourned the matter till 20th January 2025 to rule on their application. However, they and their co-travellers working in cahoot with the then newly appointed minister of Education in what was later discovered to be a coordinated resort to self-help could not even be patient to allow the court to do their job by determining the prayers before it either for or against them.
Of course, their collusions and dirty connivance soon led to the illegal and unlawful removal of Professor Odoh through a ‘mere Press Release’ on the 20th of November 2024. Needless, therefore to emphasize that Odoh only joined them in the Court as dragged by the said parties. What is remarkable is that in all these Court cases, the Ministry of Education, the National Universities Commission, (NUC) and the Honourable Attorney General of the Federation are all defendants who have exchanged processes and have legal representations in Court!
Even the ‘Acting Vice-Chancellor’, Professor Ikechebelu who was appointed as an after-thought when the minister had already unilaterally sacked Odoh without announcing any Presiding Officer for the institution has filed replies with his lawyers making appearances in the matters before the Court. So, why will a certain sponsored “Moshood” want to impetuously attempt to pitch a Professor Odoh against the Tinubu President?
In a wider and objective reasoning and without subjudice whatsoever, CAP. N139 of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Act, 2003 signed into law as an Act of the National Assembly and assented to by the then President Olusegun Obasanjo on the 10th of July, 2003 is clear on the processes of appointing and removing a Vice-Chancellor from office. The same Section specified how a Governing Council can be appointed and how they can be dissolved or removed from office.
However, despite these clear and unambiguous provisions, a newly-appointed minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa who as an appointee of the visitor should be at the vanguard of protecting our tertiary institutions from lawlessness fired the appointees with a mere Press statement even when he was sufficiently briefed that parties were already in various Courts of competent jurisdictions. Who, exactly, in this situation should be considered as the enemy of the State? A ruthlessly lawless appointee of the visitor or the unjustly removed authorities who refused to resort to self-help but rather decided to test the efficacy or otherwise of our universities extant laws?
Right thinking Nigerians are glad and happy that someone like a Professor Odoh even mustered the temerity to challenge these continuing lawlessness which has spiralled from NAU, Awka to UniAbuja and then to Nigeria’s premier University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The greatest fear of the average Nigerian public should be that if the present trend continues unchallenged, soon, our institutions may become like a Super market where a minister stays in his cossy office in Abuja to cherry-pick items and remove or add those he does not want. And this is why every lover of our educational system should support the actions initiated by Professor Odoh. Even those who were also axed recently like the Vice-Chancellor of our own University of Abuja should also be encouraged to challenge the minister’s ridiculous actions in the Court of law.
As an unbiased party who has been reading all that has been happening in the media space since the assumption of office of the Honourable Minister since November last year, I have really had cause to worry about what is driving the incessant actions he has been taking since assuming office? Politics? External influences? Inducements? What exactly does the future hold for our nation’s beleaguered education sector with this kind of conduct from a public office holder?
While I meditated deeply on the latest onslaughts against UniAbuja, UNN and other higher institutions of learning, I stumbled upon a piece published in Sahara Reporters detailing a fundamental rights suit filed by Professor Odoh. I recall also reading several anti-Odoh articles on the same platform while the battle for the soul of the said UNIZIK raged late last year. What really caught my attention was the last paragraph of the article wherein the writer quoted one of the prayers of Odoh’s lawyers, Kingsley Okorie, SAN; “Odoh in the suit filed through his team of lawyers led by Prof Chimezie Kingsley Okorie, SAN, and Eudorah Nkeiruka Ezeonye Esq, C.N Ukawuike, Esq listed five grounds for bringing the application.
Among the grounds, Odoh argued is that “Rule of Law demands that once matter is before a court of law, parties are required not to do anything with the subject matter of the action until final judgment is delivered;
“that the 1st and 2nd Defendants (that is the Minister and the Ministry of Education) are in habit of not respecting court processes; that that there is real urgency as the Defendants are about to destroy the subject matter of the action; that justice of the matter demands that sanity be maintained before the parties resort to self help, and that the Rules of the Honourable Court vested the Plaintiff/Applicant the right to bring the application”, it ended, informing that the hearing for the application has not been fixed.
The legal and academic community in particular and Nigerians in general should particularly be interested in the eventual outcome of this matter because it will go a long way to determine future descent to anarchy and lawlessness as opined by the former American General, Henry Robert. As stated by Odoh’s legal team in its prayers; _”The rule of Law demands that once matter is before a court of law, parties are required not to do anything with the subject matter of the action until final judgment is delivered”_ . It should worry Nigerians that a man who cannot be patient enough for a Court of Law to determine a matter before it just because he obviously has pecuniary interests is now presiding over our all-important education sector. Little wonder he can pronounce a reversal of the 6-3-3-4 system of education and announce a new 12 year system in the morning only to denounce or rebute same in the evening!
In conclusion, those hiding under the cloak of a certain “Moshood Diya” to attempt to discredit or pitch Odoh against the President or anybody for that matter including the Honourable Minister of Education should be considered public enemies of the extant laws of our lands. For Nigeria to reverse this ugly trend of descent to a Banana Republic and a possible further degeneration to a Hobbessian state of nature where life is nasty, brutish and short, the laws of our land must work both for the weak, the strong and the very powerful!
Wasiu Adekunle is an Abuja-based Scholar
English (US)