By Henry Oduah
Reporter
No fewer than 30 lecturers have been fired by Federal University, Dutsin-ma (FUD), Katsina State, several of them non-Muslims and non-indigenes, in an exercise allegedly intended to give room for indigenes.
A source who did not want his name in print said there are covert plans to fill the vacant positions with the relatives of influential people in the North West.
FUD Registrar, Aliyu Kankia, confirmed the sack but poured cold water on the alleged indigenisation and nepotism.
“I don’t know about that but all I know is that there are people whose employment is irregular, and that breaches were committed during their recruitment.
“Some of them technically and legally don’t even have employment with the university,” Kankia told TheNiche in a telephone interview.
When asked what he meant by “breaches”, he said: “Like a contract that specifically mentions one year, and the appointment lapses without being renewed, without being regularised. It becomes discretional whether to reemploy or to disengage.”
But the appointment letters of some of the lecturers shown to TheNiche showed that some were offered provisional appointments after the one-year trial period.
Others were employed as full members of staff after being upgraded from provisional appointments to graduate assistants.
Regardless, Kankia questioned the allegation of nepotism, throwing it back to the sacked lecturers, saying that was “what brought many of them on board though that was not the reason they were laid off.”
He said it was wrong for anyone to think that those sacked are not from the North West because “many people who are indigenes of Katsina State have been affected.”
He added that the university also had a problem of overstaffing which made the mass sack inevitable.
“There is even an issue of overstaffing in the university. Before now, appointments were done indiscriminately.
“In the university system, you consider the student-staff ratio before you employ. That is what determines the number of staff required per department.”
“People can complain but we are telling you from an informed position. For example, in a situation where you have about 12 members of staff teaching 22 students, what kind of situation do you have?
“All these problems are the issues that led to the federal government’s intervention in the university to the extent of appointing vice chancellors all over the place instead of letting due process to go on.
“They have come to make corrections in all the anomalies that informed the intervention. Remember an investigative committee was appointed for this purpose.”
On plans to replace the sacked lecturers, Kainka said: “It depends on what you have at the end of the day. After this there has to be an established ratio to be determined in respect of each department.
“That would indicate how many vacancies we have or whether we have overstaffing. That would determine the next line of action.”
He insisted that FUD has the power to hire and fire without consulting the National Universities Commission (NUC), saying the NUC is responsible for academic standardisation, not staffing.
