Afe Babalola, Alaafin berate FG for closing schools

Legal luminary and founder, Afe Babalola University Ado-Ekiti, Aare Afe Babalola (SAN) and the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, on Saturday faulted Federal Government’s order  shutting down tertiary institutions nationwide in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.

They opined that such decision is the prerogative of the Senate of each institution.

They spoke during the commissioning of four projects at the  Afe Babalola University Multi-Systems Hospital and  the launch of two books- ‘The elusive search for nation Nigeria’ and ‘AbUAD,: Pioneering educational renaissance  at the university premises.

The projects are: 16 modern dialysis machines; state of the art blood bank and transfusion services; helipad to ease transportation of patients and clients to the hospital; as well as a new building as military base to further enhance security.

Federal government on Thursday directed schools from basic up to tertiary levels to shut down for one month beginning from Monday next week.

Babalola said he received a memo from  the National Universities Commission on Thursday, flowing from  an earlier directive from the Federal Ministry of Education to close down schools nationwide.

Babalola said ABUAD Ag.Vice Chancellor Prof Smaranda Olarinde immediately summoned the university’s Senate and the Students Representative Council to discuss the matter.

The students were already midway into their second semester examination, he said.

“The one month closure would have adverse effect on the predictable academic calendar of private universities and reduce them to the level of public universities where four year programmes are not completed in eight years,” he said.

He added: “The Senate (of the university) is of the view that education is a delicate issue. Universities are not like parastatals of government like railway or Bank of Industry. Even the President who is the Visitor to public universities has no right to dissolve the Governing Council, remove Registrar and dabble into other academic affairs.

“The Ministry of Education knows that it has no right to close universities; that was why it wrote a letter to NUC to close down universities. The NUC also knows that the power to close down universities under Section 22 of Education (National Minimum Standard) provides that it must afford the proprietor of the institution an opportunity to make representation for consideration within 70 days before it can close down a university.

 “It seems to me that when NUC receives the letter from the Ministry of education, it ought to have invited proprietors of universities to an emergency meeting to discuss the letter from the Ministry of Education.”

Also speaking, Oba Adeyemi described the federal government’s directive on the closure of universities as “absolutely unnecessary.”

The former chancellor Usmanu  Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, said: “the closure of any university is the responsibility of the Senate of that university.

“The different university laws state expressly the duties and functions of the Visitor, Council and Senate. Like it is under the dictate of separation of powers, none of these three bodies has the right or power to assume the functions and duties of any of the other two.

“The instant situation as it concerns the private universities is particularly worrisome in that the federal government did not consult the private universities before asking them to shut their doors and release their students some of whom were getting ready to write their end of session examinations, to go home for a month.”  (The Nation)