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From Okwe Obi, Abuja
President Bola Tinubu has been urged to extend his ongoing reform by dissolving governing boards of all federal universities.
The call was made by an educational researcher, Dr. Abednego Silverstone, who said that universities councils should not be considered in the exception clause, derived from the Third Schedule, Part 1, Section 153 ( i) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.
Silverstone, in a statement yesterday, argued that a relevant provision in the Act establishing the Councils, also supports the idea of sacking them, in an event they are ” found to be incompetent and corrupt “.
He told President Tinubu to remain resolute and intentional in addressing the obvious challenges affecting university system and standard of education in Nigeria.
He claimed that due to political patronage, many unqualified persons were appointed into the governing Council of most of the Federal Universities.
According to him, many of the Councils’ members were going outside their mandate and were interfering with the day-to-day running of universities, thereby hampering progress with inordinate conflicting interests.
He said the President should reconstitute them and appoint only those with proven track record and can add value to the system.
He said: “Many of the people appointed into the Governing Councils of most Universities, do not have requisite knowledge and technical expertise to contribute meaningfully to the development of the systems.
“Great majority of them, were political errand boys, who were simply emplaced in the positions as reward from their political benefactors.
” The President should start sanitising the education sector from the Councils. He should appoint only technocrats with high pedigree and people that have cognate experience and can help the system to grow.”
