Go to court, Amaechi tells ASUU

Posted by admin Headlines, Rivers, State News Sunday, September 2nd, 2012

Governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State on Saturday called on the Academic Staff Union of Universities to take his government to court if it was convinced that it breached the law.

Amaechi made the call in reaction to the one-day warning strike by ASUU over the re-appointment of Prof. Barineme Fakae as Vice-Chancellor of Rivers State University of Science and Technology.

He told the News Agency of Nigeria in Berlin, Germany, that RSUST was governed by a state law and could not be dictated to by ASUU’s national leadership with regard to the appointment of its VC.

“There is a difference between the federal law which the president had signed which governs federal universities and the state law.

“They (ASUU) want me to disobey the law that sets up RSUST. I wish them luck but this will not happen within the period that I am governor of Rivers State.

“There is what is called the rule of law and true federalism; unitary system should not be applied in a state.

“The law setting up RSUST allows its vice-chancellor to run for three years second term after the expiration of his first term,” Amaechi said.

He expressed dissatisfaction that professors in the university, who were members of the governing council, made themselves candidates for the post of the vice-chancellor.

“This action is improper,’’ he said.

Amaechi said he re-appointed the university vice-chancellor in acting capacity at the end of his first tenure based on law, pending the nomination of another candidate by the university council.

“ASSU in Rivers wants to take up the position of a governor to appoint the VC. There has to be discipline and there has to be implementation of law and order,” he said.

The governor vowed that he would ensure that salary was not paid to any lecturer who failed to report for duty.

Meanwhile, the Bayelsa State chapter of ASUU has insisted that due process must be followed in resolving the leadership crisis at RSUST.

The Chairman of ASUU, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Dr. Beke Sese, described the crisis in RSUST as “an avoidable crisis of mind-boggling proportion,” adding that the protracted dispute was threatening the university’s existence.

Sese in a statement made available to our correspondent on Friday said the controversy started when Amaechi reappointed the outgoing Vice-Chancellor of the university Prof. Bariname Fakae as an acting VC.

He described the action of Amaechi as a “barefaced abuse of due process, rule of law and any sense of decency.”

“It beats the imagination and all human logic how a man who was brazenly smuggled into the system in the most bizarre manner in the first place and having served his four-year term as the substantive VC largely under very turbulent circumstances could still be appointed by the visitor (Amaechi) to continue in office in acting capacity.

“This is exactly what Amaechi, a self-proclaimed advocate of due process and the rule of law, has done in RSUST,” he said.

He said among the five professors, who passed the interview for the vacant position, Fakae allegedly came last after scoring 69 per cent, but that the law empowered the governor to appoint the VC from the first three candidates.

“But Rotimi went ahead to direct the Secretary to the State Government to announce Prof. Fakae as the acting VC.

“This outrageous act of aggression took place under the watch and tacit support of a state governor who is assiduously advocating for state police in Nigeria.

“A university is a product of law and as such all appointments within the system must conform to the law but what Amaechi has done is an audacious show of absolute disrespect to the rule of law and due process which he was a major beneficiary,” he said.

ASUU had last Thursday suspended all academic activities at NDU as a show of solidarity with its members in RSUST.

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