By Shuaibu Ahmad
The Congregation which usually makes up of senior members of the University, is a forum where the Vice Chancellor faces it to present his scorecard and to avail members of staff opportunity to ask questions on how the University had been ran within that period, offer constructive criticisms and critique policies of the administration that are not in tune with laws and statutes of the University.or the first time in the 59-year history of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, whose staff population is approximated to be not less than 40,000, leadership of the Premier Institution has recently failed to mobilize, after two different attempts, the minimum of 500 members of its staff, which is the equivalent of a quorum, to form the deliberative assembly (Congregation) necessary to conduct or discuss business of the University. The Assembly is traditionally presided over by the University’s Vice Chancellor, as its Chairman.
In the past, members of staff of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, especially under the leadership of its in-house unions, particularly, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) were the ones that used to be in the forefront of struggles to compel the University’s management to organize congregations to give account of their stewardship.
Contrary to the past convention, the management had organized the congregation on two different occasions, but, because those that turned out for the meeting did not form quorum, it had to be called off twice.
This strange and unprecedented development has generated debates among staff of the University. While some argue that failure of the staff to turn out en masse for the meeting could be translated to mean silent passing of ‘Vote of No Confidence’ on the management, others blame the in-house unions for either, compromise or indifference on the affairs of the University.
However, since the coming on board of the Professor Kabiru Bala–led administration, the in-house unions, particularly ASUU, which has been accused by some of its hardline members, of compromising the highly coveted principles of the once-upon-a-time fierce and feared union, have not been playing the traditional role of constructively engaging the administration and putting it on its toes, for the sake of check and balance, especially at a time when the management is rightly or wrongly accused of running affairs of the University as a personal entity, with impunity, without regards to law and due process.