UNIZIK: Coalition wants Tinubu’s intervention in new VC selection

-Fingers ex- Vice Chancellor of plotting to sabotage new process

By Johnbosco Agbakwuru

ABUJA — A coalition of civil society groups has appealed to President Bola Tinubu to intervene in the selection of a new Vice Chancellor of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State. 

The group under the aegis of the Coalition for Accountability and Integrity in Education, CAIE, accused a former Vice Chancellor of the university of plotting to sabotage the process put in place for the selection of a new Vice Chancellor.

CAIE alleged that a former Vice Chancellor was orchestrating efforts to derail the selection process for the next Vice-Chancellor sequel to a lawsuit filed this week at the National Industrial Court in Awka by Prof. Anthony Chukwudi Okoye in Suit No. NICN/AWK/51/2025. 

The suit contests UNIZIK’s recent advertisement for the Vice-Chancellor position and demands reinstatement of the discredited 2024 selection process, which was annulled by President Tinubu following widespread public backlash.

University stakeholders alleged that Prof. Okoye is serving as a front for the former VC, whose own bid for the role endorsed by the dissolved Governing Council was quashed last year. 

The council’s decision was overturned amid claims of procedural irregularities, opacity, and the sidelining of meritorious candidates, leading to its full disbandment.

CAIE branded the lawsuit a “clandestine scheme” to reinstall the former VC through the back door. 

“This is a brazen attack on UNIZIK’s stability and a blatant challenge to President Tinubu, the university’s Visitor,” said CAIE spokesperson Mrs. Ngozi Ekeoma. 

“He is exhuming a flawed process rejected by the Presidency, all to sow discord for personal gain. Such desperation endangers the entire institution,” it added. 

It will be recalled that the disqualification of the former Vice Chancellor has long been contested. 

The coalition further accused the former Vice Chancellor of being a proxy for shadowy interests seeking to control public universities via protracted legal battles and bureaucratic sabotage. 

“We urge the Presidency, judiciary, and education leaders to reject this coercion and uphold ethical governance,” Ekeoma added. 

“UNIZIK deserves a fair, transparent process, not chaos driven by one individual’s ambition.”

As the case advances, anxiety has gripped the Awka campus of the university as faculty and students, still healing from the 2024 scandal, worry that renewed litigation could stall progress and reignite divisions, threatening the university’s hard-won recovery.

The post UNIZIK: Coalition wants Tinubu’s intervention in new VC selection appeared first on Vanguard News.