Profile of Attahiru Jega
Attahiru Jega, a professor of political science is the vice chancellor of Nigeria’s Bayero University, Kano.
A former consultant
to INEC, he was also the national president of the Academic Staff Union
of Universities, between 1988 and 1994, during which, his predecessor
in office, Maurice Iwu, was the union’s vice president.
Mr. Jega, who holds
the national award of the Order Of the Niger, was also a member of the
Justice Uwais Electoral Reform Group, whose report has been widely
acclaimed as the required panacea for the nation’s electoral woes. He
is very popular, and generally respected for his principled stance on
issues. Some of his cohorts describe him as an ‘unrepentant optimist’
that fought and believed that Nigeria will be freed from the shackles
of the military; and that democracy will not only prevail but will
become a way of life, while he was the University union chairman.
Mr. Jega is also the founding coordinator of the Nigeria Research
Group, and the Centre for Research and Documentation in Kano. He is the
author of several books and journals, and has served as speaker at
various events. One of his major books is ‘The state and Identity
Transformation.’ Mr. Jega was head of the university’s political
science department before he was appointed its vice chancellor in 2005,
a tenure that is supposed to end in October, 2010.
Prof. Jega is a man of high intergrity,versed in the electoral issues.Apart from being an egghead, he has an obvious aversion for political sentimentality.My frank piece of advice for him is that he should be wary of ‘political wolves’ who can do anything to stampede him into the arms of fraudulent ‘electoral gods’.In any event,l think he should be able to work with the kind of president we have now to revive the credibility that nigerians should have in the INEC.