You are not CEOs, NUC boss tells VCs •Buhari expresses worry over low ranking of varsities

The newly appointed executive secretary of the  National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Abubakar Rasheed, has described as vain, the assumption and air with which many vice chancellors of universities carried themselves as though they are chief executive officers(CEOs)

Speaking on Wednesday, in Abuja, when he assumed duty as the substantive executive secretary of the commission, Professor Rasheed said it was wrong that many vice chancellors thought that they were CEOs. “They are not chief executive officers,” he stressed.

According to him, university administration requires team work,  adding  that everyone in the system has a role to play from the driver to the vice chancellor.

Professor Rasheed, a former vice chancellor of Bayero University, Kano, said he was appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari, with specific mandate to ensure that Nigerian universities were restored to their lost glory, working with relevant stakeholders.

The acting executive secretary of NUC, Professor Chiedu Mafiana, handed over the mantle of leadership of the commission to Professor Rasheed at a brief ceremony attended by two former presidents of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Professor Abdullahi Sule-Kano and Dr Nasir Fagge.

The new NUC boss, however,  said that the immediate past executive secretary of NUC, Professor Julius Okojie, would properly handover to him  tomorrow, while also appealing  to the staff of the commission to work together in an effort to transform the nation’s university system.

Meanwhile, President Buhari, has expressed deep worry over low ranking of Nigerian universities and pledged to ensure that the lost glory of the nation’s ivory tower is restored.

He has accordingly challenged the new executive secretaries of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) and the NUC,  Dr Abdullahi Bichi Baffa and Professor Rasheed, to close rank in ensuring Nigerian universities become globally competitive.

Dr Baffa, who is the newly appointed executive secretary TETFund,  said this on his assumption of office on Wednesday, in Abuja.

Dr Baffa, said President Buhari’s clear directive was for him to work with relevant stakeholders towards ensuring that Nigerian universities rank among the best 100 universities in the world.

He said this could not ,however, be  achieved if the culture of impunity that pervaded most of the agencies in the education sector in the past was allowed to continue.

He, therefore, warned the vice chancellors and heads of beneficiary tertiary institutions that the “era of everything goes is over”.

He charged all the heads of beneficiary institutions to ensure judicious utilisation of the intervention funds allocated to them. ,