?Rights group also condemns siting of golden status of Remi Tinubu in Obafemi Awolowo University

The naming of the proposed Federal University Aba after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been described as an ?overdrive of sycophancy? and building of a needless, meaningless and absolutely indecorous personality cult around the person of the serving president by the Federal house of parliament.

Besides, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), which made the observation, also condemned as ?hypocritical and an intolerable joke, the decision to locate a golden status of the wife of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the Obafemi Awolowo University IleIfe in Osun State, a 2.7 km Senator Oluremi Tinubu way, and a grand pavilion and monument at the university campus donated by the Ooni of Ife Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi.?

The rights group said the traditional ruler doesn?t own the federal university built with taxpayers? money and therefore was wrong to have domesticated his ?heroine worshipping? edifices at a federal university rather than at his palace rather than a federal school owned by all Nigerians.

?Can the Obi of Onitsha drive into the Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe University and begin to erect private projects for use to curry political favours the way the traditional king in Ile-Ife has just done? This is unacceptable and condemnable to put it mildly and by the way, if we may ask, what particular act of heroism has the wife of the current president achieved far better than the mother of Fela Anikulapo Kuti Mrs Ransome Kuti, to deserve those ?personality cult symbols? domesticated in a national educational institution? Mrs. Ransome Kuti at least was the first Nigerian woman to drive a car and was a human rights activist all through her life until the military dictators in the late 70?s assassinated her whilst attempting to kill Fela Anukulapo Kuti. In as much as we don?t have the right to dictate to the Ooni of Ife how to spend his money, we think his decision to locate those projects inside a national university doesn?t sit well with good logic,? HURIWA said Sunday in a media statement by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko.

It carpeted the House of Representatives for considering establishing another university in Nigeria despite the country having over 270 universities just as the proposed institution will be named after President Bola Tinubu.

HURIWA recalled that on Thursday, the bill to establish the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Federal University of Nigerian Languages was passed for first reading at the House of Representatives.

Sponsored by the Deputy Speaker, Benjamin Kalu, and eight others, the proposed legislation aims to promote equal access to higher education in Nigerian languages and cultures, regardless of one?s background, beliefs, or affiliations.

Titled a bill for ?An Act to Establish The Bola Ahmed Tinubu Federal University of Nigerian Languages, Aba; To Make Comprehensive Provisions For Its Due Management and Administration and For Related Matters?, the bill proposed that the university be cited in Aba, Abia, the home state of the deputy speaker.

The co-sponsors of the legislation as sighted were spokesperson of the House, Akin Rotimi, Hon. Inuwa Garba, Hon. Nasiru Shehu, Hon. Alex Ikwechegh, Hon. Bako Mark Useni, Hon. Amobi Godwin Ogah, Hon. Halims Abdullahi and Hon. Felix Uche Nwaeke.

Barring any last minute change, the bill is expected to be listed for a second reading in weeks ahead.

As of September 2024, there are over 270 universities in Nigeria. Of the total count, 149 were private while state and federal universities added up to 63 and 62, respectively.

Stakeholders in the education sector are worried over the proliferation of tertiary institutions in the country.

They believe that federal and state governments and parliaments should adopt a more rational, scientific, and development-oriented approach to higher education rather than establishing more universities.

HURIWA supported the view of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), in May this year which described the proliferation of universities in the country as a worrisome trend, urging government and stakeholders to ensure adequate funding for the existing ones.

The Rights group asserted that in the bill debated at the lower parliament in section 1 (2), ? The University shall be a body corporate with perpetual succession and a common seal and may sue and be sued in its corporate name.

It stated that general objects/purposes of the University shall be to- ?(a) encourage the advancement of learning and to hold out to all persons without distinction of race, creed, sex or political conviction, the opportunity of acquiring a higher education in Nigerian languages and cultures;

?(b) develop and offer academic and professional programs leading to the award of diplomas, first degrees, postgraduate research and higher degrees with emphasis on planning, adaptive, developmental and productive skills in the field of Nigerian languages and cultures with the aim of producing socially mature persons with capacity to communicate, understand, use Nigerian languages for national development;

?? act as agents and catalysts, through postgraduate training, research and innovation for the effective and economic utilization, exploitation and conservation of Nigeria?s natural, economic and human resources;

?(d) establish appropriate relationships with other national institutions involved in training, research and development of Nigerian languages and cultures;

?? provide and promote sound basic training as a foundation for the development of Nigerian languages, taking into account indigenous culture, the need to enhance national unity, the need to vastly increase the practical content of student training, and adequate preparation of graduates in Nigerian languages and allied disciplines;

(f) promote and emphasize teaching and research activities around Nigerian languages, including outreach programmes, in-service training, continuing education, and adaptive research;

?(g) offer academic programs in relation to the training of manpower for Nigerian languages and allied disciplines;

The President who is the visitor to the university, in Section 14 (2), is required to ?As often as the circumstances may require, not being less than once every five years, conduct a visitation of the university or direct that such a visitation be conducted by such person or persons as the visitor may deem fit and in respect of any of the affairs of the university.?

Sub-section 3 provides that ?It shall be the duty of the bodies and persons comprising the university to make available to the visitor and to any other person conducting a visitation in pursuance of this section, such facilities and assistance as he or they may reasonably require for the purposes of a visitation.?

The Visitor (President) Is also vested with the powers to remove from office council members apart from the pro-chancellor and the vice-chancellor of the university.

Section 15 (1) reads, ?If it appears to the council that a member of the council (other than the pro-chancellor or the vice-chancellor) should be removed from office on the ground of misconduct or inability to perform the functions of his office or employment, the council shall make a recommendation to that effect through the Minister to the President after making such enquiry, if any, as may be considered appropriate.

?If the President approves the recommendation, he may direct the removal of the person in question from office.?

HURIWA however condemned ?the proliferation of federal government agencies and educational institutions at a time of severe funding challenges, unprecedented poverty and the costs of living crises in Nigeria.? It said that ?the wrong-headed idea behind naming the university after the visitor to the federal university made nonsense of the entire exercise and has demonstrated that the only major reason for making such a proposal by the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives was to ingratiate himself and curry political favours from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.?

?Because the proposal for a federal university to be named Bola Ahmed Tinubu doesn?t serve any public good but is a project to massage the ego of president Tinubu and score cheap political advantages by the proponent and his acolytes, we hereby demand that this idea be perished and consigned to the dustbin of history where it rightly belongs. We are also bothered that the Deputy Speaker is working against the public demand that government should run a lean government and reduce the costs of governance by his his voyage of sycophancy of proposing a university to be named after President Bola Tinubu during president Bola Ahmed Tinubu?s administration,? HURIWA said.

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