Free at Last

Professor Boniface Egboka

Three sacked senior lecturers of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK), Awka are recalled in furtherance of the quest for peace and harmonious co-existence in the university
By Okechukwu Obenta, Awka
Reprieve has eventually come the way of the three senior lecturers of Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK), Awka, sacked under the regime of the immediate past Vice-Chancellor, Professor Augustine Ilochi Okafor, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). The affected lecturers, Professor Elias Lovet Nnabuife, Dr. Linus Nweke and Dr. Steve Ibenta were sent packing following allegations of official misconduct bothering on embezzlement of the university’s funds while they held forte as Director of the Continuing Education Programme, Director, External Degree Programmes and Co-ordinator, Pre-science School respectively, –charges each of them stoutly denied, with counter-claims that they were merely being witch-hunted by their accusers.
For instance, Nnabuife, a professor of Woods, Pulp and Paper Technology was accused of embezzling about four million naira being proceeds that accrued to the institution from the Lagos Business School– an amount the professor insists he had accounted for to the university and even produced the bank cheque issued to the University in respect of the remittance. Incumbent Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Boniface Egboka broke the news of the recall of the affected lecturers recently while appearing as a guest at the Correspondent’s Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Anambra state Council Forum.
According to him, the lecturers were recalled after the current Governing Council of the institution led by Chief Sephas Ukpana reviewed their cases and found that their recall was necessary in the interest of peace and harmonious co-existence in the institution.
Egboka: “The Council looked at the issues and found that maybe, here and there, there may have been need why the case should be reviewed and those people were brought back.” Egboka, particularly, emphasised that the recall of the lecturers was a product of the application of judicial fairness and equity, allowing people to have fair hearing and treating cases as they should be.
“Let me also tell you that the laws of the university are there for the administration of the university. But you know when you have a law, that law is subject to the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.
As far as the Vice-Chancellor is concerned, there must have been mistakes in the process of handling the lecturer, case both on the side of the lecturers and the then university administration: “The Federal Ministry of Education through the Minister had always warned university Vice-Chancellors and managements not to engage in frivolous legal matters. So when the university administration and Council look at some of the cases involving staff and students and they find that maybe the fundamental rights or whatever were not clearly adhered to, they have every reason to review, to make amend. So, it is a process of judicial fairness and equity, allowing people to have their fair hearing and treating cases as they should be. One is happy that our colleagues are coming back. And one is also very happy that we have all sorted out our problems. Even Jesus Christ forgives us. Almost everyday we commit all sorts of offences, and God forgives when we are penitent. So, I don’t see why fellow human beings, if a mistake is made, people should not be courageous enough to own up, either on the part of the individual concerned or on the part of the university administration,” the Vice-Chancellor said.
Instructively, the manner the lecturers were sacked, despite certain official reports that declared them not guilty of the allegations against them, actually exposed their sack as an act of deliberate witchhunt.
For instance, The Source had during the travails of the lecturers reported how the report of the presidential panel that looked into their matter exonerated them, yet the university management insisted that the lecturers were guilty.
Even the Code of Conduct Bureau, then presided over by Justice A. Rekhia Momoh as chairman, with Professor P.A.O. Oluyede and Alhaji Murtala Adebayo Sanni, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) as members in charge No. CCT/AN/4107 had on its judgment delivered on September 17, 2008 discharged and acquitted the then embattled university dons as not guilty of the allegation of official corruption brought against them by a senior lecturer of the university, Professor Emeka Ezeonu. Even this magazine and this reporter at a point became subjects of attack by the then university management, which accused The Source of defending fraudsters.
Interestingly, the nightmare which the three lecturers were subjected to ended following letters of recall sent to each of them by the university authority.
Dated May 10, 2010 and entitled “Letter of Recall to Duty” and referenced NAU/R/41A3/Vol.1/008 and signed by Acting Registrar, E.C. Okoye, addressed to Professor E.L.C. Nnabuife, was informed by the university Governing Council that he had been recalled and that the don should start work on May 1, 2010. “In response to your petition to the present Council and the Federal Ministry of Education, you (Professor E.L.C. Nnabuife) were advised to withdraw the case from the court– a condition precedent for an amicable settlement out of court and subsequently after the granting of long adjournment by the federal High Court, the Appeal and Petitions Committee considered the matter and presented its report to Council. Council, thereafter, decided that in the spirit of reconciliation and peaceful co-existence, you be recalled and you are hereby recalled to the university with effect from May 1, 2010.” the letter stated.
Findings by The Source revealed that the recall letters sent to each of the other two affected lecturers, Ezenweke and Ibenta, bore similar tone.
In their separate interviews, Nnabuife and Ibenta described their recall as “good tidings. Nnabuife in his reply dated May 13, and, entitled; “Re-Letter of Recall to Duty,” stated thus: “I am in receipt of a letter from the Acting Registrar of your great university, dated 10th May, 2010 on the above subject and state implicitly that it is most pleasing to receive such a letter. Firstly, may I thank the Vice-Chancellor for his singular and collective efforts in the matter.” Nnabuife, however, pleaded with the university administration to give him till August 1, 2010, to resume work, so as to enable him serve his current employer, the Anambra State University, the mandatory three months notice required of him before he can disengage from the institution.
Ibenta in a separate interview expressed gratitude to both the Governing Council and management led by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Egboka for allowing themselves to be used by God to reverse the injustice meted out to him and his colleagues.
Just like Nnabuife, Ibenta told The Source that he was going back to the university more determined to give the institution the best services he could offer. He said that he was happy that he and his colleagues were vindicated at last.
But The Source’s findings showed that there might still be some grey areas that the University management might need to reach amicable solution on with the recalled lecturers. This has to do with the payment of their outstanding salaries. According to the University administration in the recall letters sent to the affected lecturers, the lecturers might have to forgo all their salaries during the period their appointments were terminated. The reason according to the University was because it found out that during the period of their sack, they were employed by some other public institutions.
For instance, Nnabuife and Ibenta have described the decision not to pay the arrears of their salaries during the period of their travails as predicated on wrong reasoning. In his letter to the Vice-Chancellor, Nnabuife argued, among some other issues, that “I have communicated to the Governing Council per your office and pray that you give it your usual blessings. Termination of my appointment with the university did not follow the necessary due process, and, I have since been declared innocent by a court of competent jurisdiction in respect of all the alleged cases against me as outlined in the aforesaid letter of May 10, 2010. Firstly, the council will recall that I was wrongfully suspended from duty between June 22, 2005 and April 11, 2006, that is 10 months. Again upon termination of my appointment with the university on April 11, 2006, I had no job and was not employed by any other public institution until June 12, 2006, that is two months later.”
In fact, Nnabuife argued that the difference between the salary he was paid by Anambra State University and that which he was paid at Nnamdi Azikiwe University as a Professor is very clear that what he was paid by the former is quite less. Besides, he argued that what the university did when it absorbed him was to provide him with succour out of the magnanimity of the management and wondered what would have been his fate within the over three years his travails lasted.