Sahara Reporters, (SR) the popular online news website, a media outpost with self-description as “news agency … that focuses on promoting citizen journalism by encouraging everyday people to report stories about corruption, human rights abuses and other political misconduct in Nigeria” has indeed come along way. The popularity of SR is self-evident from its ever-increasing online audiences. Historically, SR is one of the very first online news media that popularized people-oriented journalism. For its path-breaking style of peoples’ journalism, SR deserves the commendation by all Nigerians who cherish equity, fairness and factual reporting of events in our society. And whether we love or hate Sahara Reporters, it has taken bold steps to liberalize worn out traditions of news production and dissemination.
However, I have observed a creeping tendency towards subjectivity in many of its reports in recent times. I will here use a recent publication which generated a lot of heat, to substantiate my claim. I have followed closely the debate generated by the publication of the article “ Ethno-Religious Cleansing Of Federal University Dutsinma, Katsina State” on September 2nd, 2016 by Mr. Olufemi Opeyemi. I have decided to express my concern because, in addition to reading the article and divergent viewers’ comments trailing it, I’m privy to about 32 rejoinders sent to Sahara Reporters, some of which were duly acknowledged while others simply overlooked but none was published. The principle of fair hearing warrants Sahara Reporters to at least publish one out of the stream of rejoinders provoked by the article which contained weighty charges of “[ethno-religious cleansing of (sic) Federal University Dutsinma”. Why is Sahara Reporters ignoring responses to such a controversial article? It diminishes the status of their platform and is a disrespect to their readers.
Federal University Dutsinma is one of twelve universities established in 2011. Obviously, the universities were established in States that had no federal university. With the exception of Kashere and Gashua in Gombe and Yobe States, all the other peer universities were sited in their respective State capitals. For Katsina State, however, the presence of two other universities in the State capital (one owned by the State government and the other privately owned), necessitated locating the new Federal University at Dutsinma, which is 65 kilometers from the ancient city of Katsina. The logic behind the establishment of 12 additional federal universities cannot be far from the desire for equity in the distribution of government institutions across the country but why is Federal University Dutsinma caught in the eye of the storm and acerbic media campaign?
If Mr. Opeyemi had taken the time to do a little investigation, he would have come up with a total opposite of his message in that article. Facts and figures contained in his article are muddled, inaccurate and incorrect which is in total disagreement with the standard of a reputable medium as SR. The title of the article is obviously misleading as Mr. Opeyemi captioned “[t]he way the Vice Chancellors were selected for twelve new Nigerian universities.
The question here is: what is so unprecedented about those appointments made directly by the Federal Government of Nigeria? Can we, in all honesty, claim that the government has done something illegal in the appointment of the Vice-Chancellors and their Governing Councils under the circumstances in which those appointments were made?
The insinuation by Mr. Opeyemi that "due process" was not followed in the appointment of those Vice Chancellors is not only faulty but mischievous. He should tell us the "due process" that was followed in the appointment of the outgoing Vice Chancellors. Both appointments had the same mode and style differing only in the personalities making them. While the first were appointed by former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, the second was by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Surprisingly the author saw no impropriety with the first appointment but has problems with the second to the extent he referred to the choice of Prof Kaita as a calamity! How insulting to both the President who approved the appointment and to the highly honored university don who could universally occupy any academic position on merit!
In case Mr. Opeyemi is not conversant with the procedures for the appointment of Vice Chancellors in Nigerian universities, I will volunteer to educate him on that.
For all federal universities established by an extant law, there are internal procedures and processes to be observed by the key organs of the university such as the Congregation, University Senate, and the Governing Council. For the process to be valid, each of the stakeholders must play its own role. No entity outside the university structure has any right to interfere in the internal processes. The university autonomy law has since guaranteed the independence of the process. Thus, when the input of these key organs were collated, the Governing Council of the University is now the final authority vested with the powers to announce a new Vice Chancellor. Therefore, the assumption made by Mr. Opeyemi that the Council, to use his words, “forwarded to the President for the appointment of one of the three” shortlisted candidates is totally erroneous and negates the principle of university autonomy. This goes to show that Mr. Opeyemi is not aware that the statute concerning the appointment of Vice Chancellors has changed. This time around everything terminates at the level of the Governing Council.
However, in the case of the newly established 12 universities, at the appointments of both the first and the second Vice Chancellors, there were no extant laws establishing those universities. In situations like that, the power to appoint a Vice-Chancellor rests with the Visitor who, in this case, is the President of the Federal Republic. Is Mr. Opeyemi now denying President Muhammadu Buhari the right to exercise his powers as the Executive President of Nigeria, while at the same time conveniently overlooking the “supposed” infringement committed by the former President Goodluck Jonathan when he directly appointed the earlier set of Vice Chancellors in the first place?
This question was genuinely raised after the appointment of the 12 Vice Chancellors, only for those who raised them to come to the realization that up to the point the appointment of the second set of the Vice Chancellors was made the laws and statutes establishing the universities were not promulgated. If they were, the government would have been compelled to observe them; the internal processes would have been allowed to take charge of the appointments. On realizing that the laws were not promulgated, the Federal Government belatedly promulgated them after the appointment of the second set of Vice Chancellors for the new federal universities. But even with this development, up until now, those laws have not been gazetted for them to take effect in individual universities.
Now going back to the theme of the body of the article, looking at the specific case of the former Bursar, Mr. Opeyemi is either unwittingly clueless or deliberately impish about happenings in the university when he maintained in his groundless protest that the former Bursar was summarily terminated from the services of the University. To use his own words, “the first victim of the scheme was the University Bursar who was duly appointed by the Federal Ministry of Education. He was terminated within five weeks of the Vice Chancellor’s assumption of duty for no cogent reason. His crime, the real reason for his termination is his religion and State of Origin, a Christian from Kogi State”. Educated people understand when empty shells bring issues of region and religion to substantiate claims they struggle to discern due to lack of capacity. For the records, former Bursar Mr. Momohjimoh Sadiq appointment was never terminated rather he voluntarily resigned from the services of the University. Mr. Sadiq who was actually on secondment from Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, has since returned to his original place of work.
Again, Mr. Opeyemi surprisingly referred to the appointment of Mr. Momohjimoh as being “duly” carried out by the Federal Ministry of Education and that of Professor Kaita by the same ministry as "dubious" and a calamity. I am sure SR will be embarrassed by this stand in their bid to unite and strengthen our nation.
With these two words ( calamity and dubious) qualifying the VC it is obvious that the author has a personal vendetta against the VC which everybody can see. If this is not the case, an apology to Prof. Kaita from SR will not only be appropriate but is binding.
Mr. Opeyemi insinuates the existence of a phantom “Katsina Mafia,” meaning a pressure group remote-controlling the affairs of Katsina State and the Federal University Dutsinma. To quote Opeyemi on this horrendous allegation, “the Katsina Mafia should have been satisfied having captured the key positions. However, they have descended heavily on the staff, intent on sending away the infidels (non-indigenes and Christians) in order to sanitize the school”. Even though this allegation has no substance, as my detailed search was unable to find the "people" who make the Mafia or places they hold their meetings. It will be interesting to unveil members of the mafia and details of their activity in this our world of increasing insecurity. If Mr. Opeyemi is unable to give these details, then it is only a wild allegation that is against the mission and vision of SR.
Establishment of Investigation Panels by the current council is in their schedule of duty and must be respected since they know better the reasons which led to their action. In case Mr. Opeyemi chooses to gloss over the truth, members of public should know that there were serious protests and petitions to the government on financial misappropriation, irregular students’ admission and extremely skewed staff recruitment leveled against the former Vice Chancellor. The Federal Government was apparently forced to send an Investigation team that finally recommended the removal and prosecution of the former Vice Chancellor and his Governing Council. Promptly, the former Vice Chancellor and the Governing Council were removed, and a new Vice Chancellor and Governing Council were put in place to replace them.
It is also quite interesting to note that Mr. Opeyemi has raised the issue of, in his words, “some staff whose appointments have been terminated.” He then listed them as follows:
1. Mr. Samter,
2. Mr. Orits Mimke
3. Mr. John Ogbodo,
4. Mr. Osuagu,
5. Mr. David Yongo,
6. Dr. Q. Amua,
7. Mr. A. Zack,
8. Dr. Richard
The list is so instigative that the general public deserves to know the truth; which is there was no termination of appointment in any of the above cases! As a matter of fact, serial number 1-5 were staff on temporary appointment whose appointment periods have since expired while serial numbers 6-8 are still in the services of the university, even though they are currently facing one disciplinary measure or the other. As far as it goes, Mr. Opeyemi is just attempting to pre-empt the disciplinary committee of the university that has not yet ascertained charges of misconduct leveled against those people. Apart from the internal problems with the university, the serial number 6-8 are also having issues with the I.C.P.C. The anti-corruption body has been sending an invitation to these people over some alleged cases of fraud in the university even before the appointment of Prof. Kaita as the Vice Chancellor of the University. But Mr. Opeyemi is now blaming the new Vice Chancellor for the woes of those staff that the I.C.P.C is investigating. In the meantime, he even confused the issues above with that of the expiration of contract period of some contract staff in the university. On this, he reported that the “seven contract staff (all Christian Southerners) had been terminated” presumably because of their faith and identity. Is Mr. Opeyemi suggesting here that the Federal University Dutsinma should not exercise its contractual obligation where it is required to continue or discontinue with any contract staff at the expiration of his or her contract period?
Mr. Opeyemi quarrels over the alleged termination of the appointment of “non-indigenes” while “Katsina indigenes” are not affected. Looking at the nominal role of the Federal University Dutsinma, Katsina State indigenes have not been employed in the university in the first place. So, it is pointless to suggest sacking of non-existing indigenes. Indeed, they are not available to be sacked. On the rhetoric question of whether “Is it only non-indigene Christians that should be sent away from the Federal University Dutsinma?” I discovered that almost all the staff recruited into the services of the Federal University Dutsinma in Katsina State were predominantly Christians from the Deeper Life denomination. Similarly, in virtually the whole university you do not find any appointed officer - dean, director or head of department – that are Muslims or Christians from other Christian denominations under the administration of the former Vice Chancellor who hailed from Benue State, who had most of his staff recruitment from Benue State. Now that the federal government has appointed credible Nigerians from different parts of the country as members of the Governing Council, Mr. Opeyemi is finding it strange; he is berating a new dispensation that is so different from what he used to know. Has he now forgotten that the management staff of the former administration were all drawn from one Christian denomination? Here are some painful facts that have to be pointed since he raised the issue.
1. Prof. James O.I. Ayatse – Vice Chancellor (Deeper Life Christian)
2. Prof. Johnson O. Fatokun – Deputy Vice Chancellor (Deeper Life Christian)
3. Mr. Momohjimoh Sadiq – Bursar (Deeper Life Christian)
4. Sir Boye Oyewande – Director Physical Planning & Works (Deeper Life Christian)
5. Mr. Jack A. Ebe – Director Procurement (Deeper Life Christian)
6. Prof. Joshua Ogunwale – Director Advancement and Linkages (Deeper Life Christian)
7. Dr. Godwin O. Adejo – Director Academic Planning (Deeper Life Christian)
8. Mr. Agber Torkuma – Director I.C.T (Deeper Life Christian)
9. Dr. Olabisi Tanimowa – Director, University Health Service (Deeper Life Christian)
10. Dr. Yunusa Magaji Matazu – Director Sports (Deeper Life Christian)
11. Mr. Raymond C.O. – Chief Security Officer (Deeper Life Christian)
12. Prof. Shade Omokore – Dean of Arts (Deeper Life Christian)
13. Prof. Friday Ati – Dean of Social Sciences (Deeper Life Christian)
14. Prof. Kighir A.E. – Dean Management Sciences (Deeper Life Christian)
15. Prof. Benjamin A. Ladani – Dean of Education (Deeper Life Christian)
16. Mr. Q. Amua – Dean Student Affairs (Deeper Life Christian)
The list can go on ad infinitum if one decides to look at other segments of staffing in the university. This, therefore, means that the former Vice Chancellor did not observe the government regulations concerning staff employment in a federal establishment in which no particular section of the country is allowed to employ more than a quarter share of senior staff cadre. Let it be clear that this issue is raised to dispute an allegation not that this author has anything against the particular denomination.
Similarly, the same former Vice Chancellor has breached the extant law which directed that all junior staff should be employed from the area where a federal institution is located. Instead, he employed most of his junior cadre staff from his own state. Worse of all, he turned Federal University Dutsinma into a cesspool of dismissed staff from other Nigerian universities. As a result, the Governing Council has since set up a committee to verify the status of all staff in the University. Unfortunately, this is what Mr. Olufemi Opeyemi is attempting to pre-empt in his article.
In conclusion, I call on SR not only to publish cogent facts at all times but also to seriously investigate all matters written by authors of the likes of Mr. Opayemi to avoid embarrassing comments from the general public who you aspire to serve.
It may also be to the benefit if Mr. Opeyemi could enroll for further education so that he practices investigative rather than crude perceptive journalism. This is what Nigeria and Nigerians need at this stage of our national development.
