AS the race for the seat of Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) hots up, there is an indication that 15 out of the 75 candidates that started the struggle for the exalted office have emerged.
Informed sources revealed that the 15 professors are to be interviewed by the governing council of the university.
Further checks showed that some of the criteria applied by the authority in the elimination series included positions held by the aspirants, either as a vice chancellor, deputy vice-chancellor (DVC), director, Dean of faculty and years of experience as a professor which must not be less than 15 years including journals published in international magazines.
“With the last hammer of the governing council, 20 out of the 35 professors dropped from the list and 15 professors maintained the race which included three indigenous professors from Nsukka extraction who had occupied and excelled in various positions held in recent past”, the source added.
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Speaking on the chances of Nsukka Professor to occupy the exalted position of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, the Special Adviser to Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi on Market Matters, Chief Ezugwu Aniebonam, said that Nsukka zone had awakened to be in the forefront of the university cited on her soil in 1960.
High Chief Aniebonam said that the three Nsukka professors in the list for the vice-chancellorship position of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka was the first ever to vie for the position since the university was established in 1960, adding that every freeborn of Nsukka have queued behind the three indigenous professors that made the final list of the 15.
The governor’s aide noted that Nsukka zone is not applying the violent mechanism to achieve its mission but on peaceful contention in synergy with the guiding rules of the governing council of the university on whose shoulders the power rests for who succeeds Prof. Ozumba.
He said, “Nsukka has been sitting on the fence with towering degrees and doctorates as lecturers while the intermediate ones were engaged as security personnel and other menial junior staff cadres”
According to him “Migrants continued to reap the fruits on the soft green hills of Nsukka since 1960 to the present time
“Time has come when Nsukka man will rise and stand to raise the head above all to the satisfaction and admiration of the international community as vice chancellor of the premier university,” he said.
“The three indigenous professors of Nsukka are not contesting the vice-chancellorship on do or die affairs but on mutual understanding and prerequisites qualification to the vacant position in the university.
” We are only appealing to the appropriate authorities to consider the length of service and patience of Nsukka people for the past 60 years the university was established and consider the slot for an indigenous processor for the first time in annals of the history of the university
He called on stakeholders both at home and in diaspora to join hands with the three indigenous professors for the vice-chancellorship position of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
High chief Aniebonam appealed to Enugu state Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, Senator Chuka Utazi representing Enugu North and Dr. Pat Asadu representing Nsukka/Igboeze south federal constituency to do the needful in other to ensure the vacant position in the university does not elude one of the three indigenous professors that made the final list of the governing council of the university.
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He noted that the governor had always toed the path of peace since and would not fold hands while Nsukka zone cries out for justice and equal rights in the exalted vice chancellorship position of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
“I sincerely call on the presidency to partner with Nsukka zone to restore the dignity of man by ceding the position to an indigenous professor as compensation since 1960 of the establishment of the university on Ashor hills of Nsukka”
He recalled that the great Zik of African descent founded the university in 1960 and also gave out the block of Ziks flats to the university for the love of Nsukka that gave him refuge.
The 14th vice-chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka Professor Benjamin Chukwuma Ozumba is expected to end his five years single tenure on June 14, this year.