*Group seeks Tinubu’s intervention*
Academic and other administrative activities are almost grounded at Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike ( MOUAU), following the insistence of the Council Chairman, Comrade Fidelis Edeh to take charge of the day to day running of the institution and his avowed vengeance against the vice-chancellor, Prof Maduebibisi Iwe and his loyalists over the fall out of the Enugu governorship election in 2023.Whereas Edeh was the Director General of the Campaign to disgraced former Minister of Science and Technology, Chief Uche Nnaji, Prof Iwe was the returning officer at the election in which Governor Peter Mbah of PDP was declared winner. It is believed that Edeh holds a big sized grudge against Prof Iwe for refusing to compromise the election, in favour of Nnaji and this is largely responsible for the war of attrition currently going on in the university.
The immediate casualties of the war are prospective job applicants who responded to a recent advertisement to job offers by the university. Edeh has refused to give approval for them to be interviewed and employed. Others are graduating students whose convocation had been abruptly cancelled by the Council Chairman without recourse to the other council members, management, and the Senate, which is constitutionally empowered to fix convocation and matriculation of students. Even the planned appointment of a new vice Chancellor is hanging because Edeh wants to unilaterally appoint the same. Others caught in the crossfire are people believed to be close to Prof Iwe, including Dr. Philips Nto, whose promotion to the post of a professor has been withheld by Edeh.
Edeh’s onslaught against Prof Iwe and Dr. Philips Nto came to the open when he refused to table Dr Nto’s paper at Council meetings for his promotion to the rank of a professor. Even after calling the so-called special meetings outside regular and emergency council meetings, he refused to bring the matter to the table to be deliberated upon. Instead, he confided in his loyalists that ASUU wrote a petition against Dr. Nto and that he also has a pending criminal case in court. The question is, why talk about a pending case in court when the law presumes everyone innocent until proof of conviction by a court of competent jurisdiction? At any rate, the said case is not even a university matter but a political one where Dr. Philips Nto was joined in a suit against a former governor of the state, Chief TA Orji. Again, if ASUU wrote a petition against Nto, why has it not been made public for more than six months for the man to defend himself? Those are just flimsy excuses to deny him promotion just because of his affliation to Prof Iwe.
On the other hand, after frustrating Iwe severally in the course of the execution of his duties as the Vice Chancellor, Edeh has now come out openly to punish him for refusing to rig Nnaji in as a governor through the planned manipulation of the appointment of a new vice-chancellor and the halting of employment of new staff. To achieve the twin purpose, Edeh has come after all strong Abia academics in MOUAU with the same Dr Philips Nto as the target.
His first action was to order the arrest of Abia indigenes in the university who had called for transparency and credibility in the selection process of a new vice-chancellor. The Department of State Services, which arrested and released them, warned against acts that would destabilise the university. Although Edeh had also ordered the management to issue the staff queries, that action has been put on hold because of fear of a backlash. Yet, no date has been fixed for the interview of prospective candidates for the vice-chancellor. This December is the deadline. Edeh wants to impose his preferred candidate. He is dropping the names of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State as those who have authorised him to pick a candidate of his choice.
But unknown to many, he is shopping for a pliant candidate that will be used to rig election in Enugu State against Gov Peter Mbah who is not only popular in the state because of his administrative competence and transformative leadership but his strong support for President Tinubu. It is yet to be seen how Edeh can manoeuvre that scheme since Mbah has joined APC and is now the leader of the party in Enugu and no longer Nnaji.
But not minding the consequences of his ill-advised actions, Edeh has also put on hold the recruitment of staff in MOUAU, which was sanctioned by the Minister of Education, Dr Alausa. He is ready to risk his removal with this open defiance of a ministerial order just to spite Prof Iwe. He doesn’t want Iwe to preside over the recruitment. He doesn’t want Abia people to benefit. He is unapologetic over it.
To make matters worse, his cancellation of the convocation of the university earlier advertised for Friday, December 13th, 2025, has put so many families in disarray. Many who stay abroad or live far away from Umuahia have long made their travelling arrangements only for Edeh to abort it. Even General Ike Nwachukwu, who had accepted the offer to be the chairman of the Convocation ceremony, is confused. To make matters worse,Edeh never discussed the cancellation with other council members. As the emperor of MOUAU, he took the decision unilaterally.
Swimming from one controversy to the other, he has also ordered the probe of the company handling Information, Communication Technology for the university, Citinet Ltd. His grouse against the company is that it refused to release money to fund media campaign against Dr Philips Nto and other Abia people he perceived to be strong pillars against his imposition of a new vice-chancellor in the university. Instead of allowing the management to follow the rules of appointments of a probe committee which prescribes thst once the Chairman is an academic staff, the secretary must be a non academic staff preferably from the office of the Registrar. By the appointment of Prof Offo as chairman of the committee and Dr Charles Osodeke, as secretary, Edeh has opened up another flank for Labour dispute with the non-academic staff who feel slighted by the latest action.
Alarmed by these unsavoury and illegal activities of Edeh which have the capacity to disrupt the smooth running of the institution , a group known as the Concerned and Aggrieved Parents of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Minister of Education, Dr Alausa to investigate the allegations against the council chairman. They have also called on Governor Hope Uzodimma to distance himself from Edeh, noting that the governor as a man of the people should not allow the council chairman to taint his reputation.
The Chairman of the group, Hon Obinna Nwankwo wondered why the Council Chairman should decide to wage a war of vendetta against Prof Iwe and Dr Philips Nto just because they performed their statutory duties and refused to do his satanic bidding. He disclosed that the people of Abia State will never allow someone to disgrace their illustrious sons just because he holds the transient power of a council chairman of a university.
