A former Vice-Chancellor of the
Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, who is also a
leading member of the Northern Elders Forum, speaks about the
controversies of his tenure, and the proposed amnesty for the Boko Haram
sect, in this interview with JOHN ALECHENU
What was your experience as the Vice-Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University?
That was a very long time ago. I left ABU as VC in 1986, that’s about 27 years ago; it’s been a long time.
Each time people talk about your tenure, they remember the “Ango must go” crisis…
(Cuts in) My tenure was the most peaceful of all tenures of vice-chancellors.
What happened then?
There had been (Prof.) ‘Ishaya (Audu)
Must Go,’ (Prof.) ‘Iya (Abubakar) Must go,’ ‘Akinkugbe Must Go,’ and
after Ango left, so many other ‘Must Gos’ have happened. In fact, I
think, I had the least number of student demonstrations in my eight
years. If you look at the eight years, there was one in 1981 and another
in 1986. The one in 1986 was the one that became fatal, that was what
gave it the big umbrella of debate and concerns. Policemen shot some
students in the course of trying to keep peace on campus and we were
criticised for inviting the police. ABU is part of the country and if
there is a breakdown of law and order in any part of the country, you
call on law enforcement agents. That was what really happened. After the
hue and cry, government succumbed and instituted a panel of inquiry
headed by General Abisoye. When they wrote their report, they
particularly underlined the place where they said the VC is completely
blameless. That became an additional certificate for me. When I was
contesting for elections, some people wrote a petition about my tenure
at ABU and brought out the report for electoral purposes and I said this
is my certificate in terms of that crisis and if there is anything or
anywhere where they said I touched one kobo of ABU’s money, I will be
delighted to answer. The only thing I can tell anybody is that I was the
first person to be elected as the VC of ABU. Prior to the election, I
was the acting VC but I was not interested in becoming the (substantive)
VC. My colleagues insisted that I should become the substantive VC and I
said in that case, there must be an election because there were six
candidates. I told the registrar to go and prepare secret ballots for
the election. The (university) Senate was full; it had 116 members that
evening. They were told that the acting VC has decided that the Senate
will have a say in who becomes the VC, they came and the ballots were
cast. I scored 73 votes and the next person to me, Prof. Gomwalk scored
18, then I knew the university was ready for me to provide leadership. I
thanked them and told them that: Anytime you are tired of me, just let
me know, I will walk away.” It was not something I insisted on doing. I
told the registrar that the election results must be put in the archives
because the way VCs emerged over the years in many universities, leaves
a lot to be desired. It has led to a lot of bloodletting, arguments, so
on and so forth. It’s a job that is honourable, but it’s a job that is
also thankless. When I started in ABU in 1979, I had to go to the bank
to take overdraft to pay salaries but when I left ABU as VC in 1986, the
university could run a full session without subvention from government.
How did you achieve that?
When Prof. Nayaya, who took over from me
and saw these funds, he ran to my house shivering and said Ango, what
happened? He said, “I left Calabar with a lot of debt and when you put
all the universities together they don’t have this kind of money in
their accounts. How did you do it?” I said go to my bursar; go to my
director of works, that’s where it happened. I’ve never seen a bursar
like Daniel Ugbabe, he is an Idoma man. Until of recent, he did not have
a car. It’s just a matter of sacrifice. I refused to have a generator
in my residence, the car Iya Abubakar and Akinkugbe used was what I used
for eight years. So, no head of department could walk into the office
of the vice-chancellor and ask for a new car. It was not possible
because he knew I was using an old car so why should he ask for a new
one? This is really a matter of leadership style and sacrifice which is
not available anymore, not only in the university but everywhere and
that is why the country is in crisis today.
Was this due to the academic culture that was prevalent on our campuses then?
Exactly! Even today, I criticise
universities for being indolent, subservient and quiet. Last month, I
had an occasion to lecture at the Congo Campus of ABU and I said I
missed the days of Bala Usman, Femi Odekunle and the likes of them who
kept everybody on their toes not only within the university itself but
the country. They were watching out for bad leaders, exposing and
criticising them. I still argue that universities are the last bastions
and if we cannot stand and really protect the interest of the Nigerian
public, nobody can. Right now, we have crisis with the police and the
judiciary, there is no fallback position, none.
It was also during your tenure that the fiery Caribbean academic, Patrick Wilmot, was deported from Nigeria. What went wrong?
Oh yes, it was during my time. It was
during the Gen. brahim Babangida regime. You know back then, you had the
Marxist group of academics who were not at all times in good terms with
the government especially when there was this change from the Gen.
Muhammadu Buhari regime to Babangida’s. People saw Babangida as a stooge
of Western political and economic interests — the devaluation of our
currency, the IMF debate which said Nigerians should reject the loans
and so on, and that’s how perhaps they (Wilmot and co) began to
criticise them and then he (Babangida) had to pick on somebody and since
he could not deport Bala Usman, he had to deport Wilmot who was not a
Nigerian.
Universities now have a single five-year tenure for vice-chancellors. Has this helped the system?
I don’t know. Whether you stay for two
years, five years or for eight years as I did, it all depends on what
you set out for yourself to achieve and what the institutional goals are
and how hard you are working towards achieving them. The question is:
What are the institutional goals? Let’s strive and get them. Do we have
the resources to get them? Once you identify them and once the
institutional goals are known, all you worry about are the resources to
carry them out. The resources are human and material. Human in the sense
that you work with your heads of departments, your deans, you work
through the committee system and of course the management of resources
is in the hands of the VC, bursar and principal officers. The number of
years doesn’t matter, it all depends on the attitude of those in charge
and the resources that are available for them to carry on.
In the 1970s up till the late
1980s, most Nigerian universities could boast of intellectuals from
different parts of the world. Can you say the same of our universities
today?
No, sadly. Today most of them have
either become ethnic enclaves or are in the process of becoming one. I
am glad that the Minister of Education, referred to it at the
inauguration of new governing councils for universities the other day.
She said university councils must find a way to take universities
particularly the federal ones, out of their ethnic cocoons. That is what
is breeding the kind of elite dichotomy and disunity you find in this
country today. Our forefathers even though they were in regions did more
for unity of the country than we have been able to achieve now. The
thing is so intense now. Definitely, the universities have become small
enclaves and ethnic crossbreeding is not flourishing. That is perhaps
why there is more intense ethnic divide now and to some extent even
religious ones in the country. The universities, if they can
re-orientate themselves, will have a major role to play in dealing with
this.
ABU was famous across Africa for
its agricultural research among others. The same cannot be said of the
institution presently, what happened?
What happened was abandonment. By the
time Ahmadu Bello university was transferred to federal control, the
support for research, particularly agricultural research, moved away
from the direct beneficiaries, we began to have problems. In addition, I
think because of the federal intervention which was not there before,
additional research institutes just like universities were created. They
started mushrooming; we started having more research institutes as if
the numbers are more important than the quality of work that was going
on in the existing ones. If they had expanded and consolidated on the
existing one, it would have been adequate for the entire country because
they were diversified to reflect the ecological areas where they were
working. When I started as an extension specialist, there was no part of
the North that I didn’t set my foot on and this was how we produced the
groundnut pyramids, cotton and the rest of it. But now, the policies
are gone; no adequate funding for the research and the lecturers are
satisfied with their petridish experiments behind and inside their
offices. But there are no funds for practical research that will help
direct application in the field. It is such a pity.
Some have said you have never won an election and so, you cannot speak for the people of the North. How do you react to this?
(Prolonged laughter) I have contested
for and won elections six times. Let me list them for you: I contested
and won an election for the first time in the history of the Ahmadu
Bello University, Zaria, to become VC with an overwhelming number of
votes from members of the University Senate; that was free and fair
election. Then when I started politics in Kaduna State together with
General (Sheu) Yar’Adua, I won an election first in the primaries of the
Social Democratic Party to clinch the SDP ticket and the candidature of
the party to contest the governorship of Kaduna State. I also won the
governorship election; everybody knew I won the election. I defeated
Dabo Lere, he was in National Republican Convention and of course, the
powers that be said they would not want to handover Kaduna State to a
radical governor. I was among one of the first people to suffer being
denied victory in an election. Go and ask anybody in Kaduna State today,
who won the election between me and Dabo Lere, they will tell you,
Prof. Ango Abdullahi won. I won an election to emerge as the
Presidential flag bearer of Kaduna State under the option A4
arrangement. I contested against Maikori to be the flag bearer of Kaduna
State under the option A4 in Jos, to contest with Abiola, I contested
with many people to emerge winner. Since then, I won three other
elections to represent my constituency in three Constitutional
Conferences, one in 1987/ 1988, one in 1994/1995 and another one in
2005, the constitutional reform conference.
We are still looking forward to working
together with the groups claiming to be speaking for the North. We have
to find a forum where we should speak with one voice.
What do you think about the rejection of the amnesty proposal to the Boko Haram sect?
That Shekau is reacting or his group is
reacting to the position of government on amnesty is itself a good
beginning of dialogue. It may not be a face-to-face discussion but
dialogue through the media is a good beginning, as far as I am
concerned. At some point, I believe there will be more of such exchanges
and these exchanges will throw more light on the positions taken by
each side and those who are mediating whether openly or behind the
scenes will have more tools with which to work to be able to bring the
two sides closer together. I believe that when you go back to the
Yar’Adua time when amnesty was given to the Niger Delta youths, he gave
six months offer of amnesty after which the amnesty will be withdrawn
and they kept on dilly dallying until the last week. I don’t want to
look at it negatively and say when they reject, what remains? Do they
want us to continue to use force? To use force will not solve the
problem and this has been acknowledged by most reasonable opinions. That
it is not the way forward. We must try everything possible to encourage
this interaction even at the beginning when it appears to be hostile
with rejection.
Are you still a member of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party…
(Cuts in) No, I am not. I was a founding father of the PDP I left it 10 years ago.
Why did you leave the PDP?
It is not running the way it should. We
wrote the constitution. I was one of those who sat to consider it, the
party simply began not to obey the rules; it was not only disobeying the
rules of the party, starting from this issue of zoning, it was also
disobeying the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in so
many ways. I thought that when we started with Yar’Adua, we were going
to start something really very far-reaching and sustainable. Of course,
Shehu (Yar’Adua) didn’t make it and it was a major loss to Nigeria and
since we lost him, unfortunately we haven’t got a replacement. We have
not gotten a new rallying point. That is why I am not in any of these
things.
What is your take on the talk of power shifting come 2015?
It is unfortunate that people who are
benefiting from a very good arrangement of being their brother’s keepers
are now kicking against it. Power is transient. No matter how many you
are; no matter how strong your voting power is, there is a time in which
you will relinquish power to others. This was what zoning was all about
and I thought this was done in good faith and should have been
encouraged until such a time that Nigerians feel they don’t need it and
there is enough understanding by all Nigerians that they don’t need
zoning to be able to find a leader, irrespective of where he comes from.
This is what the principle was and we are not saying it should be
permanent but at some point, we will discard it ourselves. But
unfortunately, those who started it, who benefited from it, were the
ones who wanted to begin to create all the problems we are experiencing
now-Obasanjo in particular. He was the first beneficiary, he was not a
politician, he was in prison when he was picked up, cleaned up,
pardoned, given money to run his campaign and he became the President
but he was the first to say there was no zoning. Obasanjo, who was the
first beneficiary of the zoning arrangement, said he did not know
anything about zoning. To even think that he was going to go for a third
term, shows you how untrustworthy some leaders can be. This was what
went on and on until the person who succeeded him, Umaru (Yar’Adua),
came to say he didn’t know anything about zoning.
Sources: The punch
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