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The federal government yesterday announced the
appointment of vice chancellors and registrars for the new nine newly
approved federal universities which will open in September this year.
The former vice chancellor of the University of Lagos, Oye Ibidapo-Obe
who is now the vice chancellor of Federal University, Ndufu-Alike,
Ebonyi state. Others include Abdulmumini Rafindadi for Federal
University, Lokoja, Kogi state; Ekanem Ikpi Braide for Federal
University, Lafia, Nasarawa state; Mohammed Kabir Farouk for Federal
University, Kashere, Gombe state; and Geoffrey Okogbaa for Federal
University, Wukari, Taraba state. The rest are James Ayatse for Federal
University, Dutsin-Ma, Katsina state; Jibrila Dahiru Amin for Federal
University, Dutse, Jigawa state; Chinedu Nebo for Federal University,
Oye Ekiti, Ekiti state; and Bolaji Aluko for Federal University,
Otuoke, Bayelsa state.

While announcing the appointments at a press briefing on Wednesday in Abuja, Minister of Education

Ruqqayatu Rufai explained that the decision of the
federal government to establish the universities was informed by the
desire to provide the access to university education to a larger number
of qualified candidates who are annually stranded due to lack of
carrying capacity by the existing universities.

The appointments, according to the minister, take
effect immediately even as she directed the Joint Admission and
Matriculation Board (JAMB) to facilitate students’ intake into the nine
universities by September this year.

She noted that the creation of the new universities
was also informed by the principle of equity in the distribution of
federal universities to cover all the states of the federation saying
“there are at present 12 states without federal universities”.

“Federal government has approached the matter
systematically by establishing nine universities in the first instance
while the remaining three states will have federal universities in due
course,” she said.

The minister disclosed that a sum of N1.5 billion,
which would be sourced by the Education Trust Fund (ETF), has been
approved by the federal government for each university.

According to her, the appointment of the vice
chancellors and registrars was done to avoid the localization of the
new universities and to ensure that they take off as national and
international centres of knowledge.

“Care has been taken to ensure that the pioneer vice
chancellors were carefully chosen from the ranks of former vice
chancellors, deputy vice chancellors, provosts of colleges of medicine
as well as distinguished Nigerian professors in the Diaspora,” she
said. “No vice chancellor shall serve in a university within his or her
geo-political zone.”

President Goodluck Jonathan had last year directed that a committee
be set up to work out the modalities for establishing the new
institutions. Kenneth Gbagi, minister of state for education, said that
the report of the committee was good. “It has different segments but
has to do with the creation of six new universities approved by the
federal executive council,” he said.