By ZUBEIRU S. DANLADI
The University of Abuja, now incongruously renamed Yakubu Gowon University finds itself ensnared in one of the most brazen acts of institutional subversion in the history of Nigerian higher education. At the centre of this crisis sits Professor Hakeem Babatunde Fawehinmi, a man who currently occupies the office of Vice-Chancellor despite lacking the single most fundamental qualification that the institution itself advertised as mandatory: a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).
Prof. Fawehinmi Named Vice-Chancellor of Yakubu Gowon University – JolibaLive | The Information Marketplace
His continued presence in that office is not merely an embarrassment to one university, it is an affront to the entire Nigerian academic system, a mockery of the rule of law, and a testament to how executive arrogance, when left unchecked, can reduce a citadel of learning to a theatre of patronage and political manipulation.
The time for polite protest has passed. Professor Fawehinmi must resign or be sacked and the entire appointment process must be restarted with integrity and strict adherence to the law. The legal framework governing this matter is unambiguous. The Universities (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act No. 11 of 1993, as amended in 2003 and 2012, provides the statutory basis for the appointment of Vice-Chancellors in Nigerian federal universities.
It mandates that such processes comply strictly with the advertised criteria, which serve as legally binding terms of engagement. The University of Abuja’s vacancy notice had made possession of a PhD mandatory, in line with NUC regulations.
These are not aspirational preferences, they are conditions precedent to eligibility. A rigorous academic and legal evaluation of the substantive Vice-Chancellor appointment, viewed through the lens of advertised requirement compliance and institutional precedent, leads to one clear inference: failure to meet a mandatory PhD requirement constitutes a fundamental disqualification, and such non-compliance invalidates the appointment in both law and governance ethics.
Nigerian courts have reinforced this position consistently. The National Industrial Court, in a case involving the Nigerian Association of Medical and Dental Academics (NAMDA), rejected the equivalence of a medical fellowship with a PhD, a ruling that legal experts say strengthens arguments that this appointment may be invalid and is exposed to judicial nullification under the doctrine of ultra vires.
An appointment that cannot survive judicial scrutiny should not survive public or governmental tolerance either.
The distinction between a fellowship and a PhD is not technical hairsplitting, it goes to the heart of what a Vice-Chancellor is required to be. While fellowships reflect advanced professional competence, they do not certify the research expertise, scholarly contribution, or cross-disciplinary leadership capacity expected of a Vice-Chancellor, and substituting one for the other amounts to both an academic misclassification and a breach of established regulatory standards.
Professor Fawehinmi holds a Fellowship of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (FRAI) and a Fellowship of the Academy of Medicine Specialties of Nigeria (FAMedS). Impressive as those credentials may be in their proper context, they are professional distinctions not earned academic doctorates.
A Vice-Chancellor, who presides over a university that awards PhD degrees, supervises doctoral programmes, and sets the intellectual tone for hundreds of scholars, must himself hold the highest academic qualification in that same hierarchy. Anything less creates a structurally absurd situation in which the institution’s leader lacks the very qualification he is empowered to confer upon others.
The fingerprints of Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, are all over this debacle, and his culpability must be stated plainly. It was Minister Alausa who, rather than allowing the former Governing Council’s lawful (even though contested) decision appointing Professor Aisha Maikudi to stand, apparently advised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to dissolve the Governing Council and remove Professor Maikudi on February 6, 2025 barely weeks into her tenure.
That single act of executive overreach dismantled the lawfully constituted governance architecture of the university and set in motion the cascade of crises that has followed. Luckily for the Federal Governemnt, Professor Patricia Manko Lar who replaced Maikudi has been generally certified to have brought calm and inclusive leadership to the system.
But, rather than seize the opportunity, the Federal Govenement through the Minister of Education and Chariman of Uniabuja governing council bottled the rare chances for progress by not renewing Lar’s appointment.
The cumulative effect of these events have been monumental leadership and governance crisis, leaving the University of Abuja in a state of instability.
Even more damning is what has happened since. When the Federal Executive Council appeared to signal that medical fellowships might be equated with PhDs, a move widely interpreted as providing retroactive legal cover for Fawehinmi’s appointment, Minister Alausa was subsequently compelled to issue a clarification, stressing that reports suggesting a PhD would replace or be considered equivalent to a medical fellowship were an “incorrect misrepresentation” of the FEC decision.
In attempting to manufacture a legal shield for a politically sponsored appointment, the Minister instead confirmed its illegality. The cure has become the indictment.
The Governing Council Chairman, Senator Olanrewaju Tejuoso, must equally bear the weight of institutional responsibility for this governance catastrophe. Senator Ndoma-Egba (who chaired the FUOYE process) and Senator Tejuoso (who chaired the UniAbuja process) each oversaw the appointment exercise, with Tejuoso insisting at a press conference that due process was followed.
That insistence is hollow in the face of facts. The Council is the custodian of the university’s integrity. It alone had the authority and responsibility to ensure that every candidate placed before it met the advertised criteria. To proceed with the appointment of a candidate whose qualifications fall short of the mandatory threshold and then defend that decision publicly is not a procedural oversight; it is a betrayal of the Council’s fiduciary duty to the institution, the academic community, and the Nigerian public.
The long-standing tradition of the University in selecting the least controversial and most legally defensible candidate reinforces the argument that the Governing Council is institutionally obligated to correct the present anomaly through elevation of the fully qualified, non-controversial candidate from the existing shortlist. A Council that cannot uphold the very rules it advertised has forfeited its moral authority to govern.
The consequences of allowing this situation to continue are neither hypothetical nor distant, they are already materialising.
Beyond alleged financial irregularities, the deeper damage is epistemic; every degree conferred, every promotion approved, and every policy directive issued by a Vice-Chancellor whose appointment is legally defective is potentially contestable in court. The university’s academic credibility, already strained, risks irreparable harm with each passing month. Following the fact that Fawehinmi does not possess a requisite doctorate, there exists a universal consensus within the university community that he is unfit to lead the institution.
The path forward is not ambiguous. Professor Fawehinmi should do the honourable thing and resign from an office he is not qualified to hold. If he will not, the Governing Council must immediately withdraw the appointment, as it possesses both the authority and the obligation to do so. Minister Alausa, whose intervention created this crisis and whose subsequent clarification inadvertently confirmed its illegality, must also cease interfering in the university’s governance, and the Governing Council Chairman Senator Tejuoso, who has politicised the appointment of Vice Chancellor(s) should immediately have a rethink, or face accountability before the National Assembly, which had previously directed the university to halt its selection process pending oversight, a directive that was blatantly ignored.
The NUC, which has emphasised that its guidelines are issued to protect the integrity, reputation, and global standing of the Nigerian university system and that regulatory sanctions will be applied against any institution or individual found in breach of these rules, must now demonstrate that those sanctions are not ornamental. Silence from the NUC at this juncture would render its own guidelines meaningless.
The University of Abuja must restart its Vice-Chancellor appointment process from the beginning, not from a shortlist compromised by political interference, but through a fresh, transparent, and legally watertight exercise conducted under proper oversight. The new process must be governed strictly by the Universities (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, NUC guidelines, and the university’s own statutes. It must be free from ministerial interference, political malfeasance, ethno-religious calculations, and the kind of executive overreach that has repeatedly turned this institution into a battleground for political interests.
Nigeria’s universities are not personal estates of political officeholders, and the laws governing them must mean something. The University of Abuja deserves a Vice-Chancellor who is not only academically qualified but whose appointment can withstand the full scrutiny of the law, the courts, and the conscience of every Nigerian who believes that merit, not manipulation, should determine who leads our centres of learning. Doing so, will mean, doing the right thing!
*Zubeiru S. Danladi is an alumni of the University of Abuja, and writes from the United Kingdom.
