VC Michael Okpara University Accused Of Firing Workers For Personal Gains

Workers sacked from Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike, Abia State have decried that their sack was to enable the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Francis Otunta “recruit his ow people”.

The university administration  defended  the termination of the appointments of 496 workers, including academic and non-academic staff, saying the workers were employed on temporary basis.

Speaking with Premium Times spokesperson of the university Adanma Odefa said, “The staff were engaged on temporary basis in 2016 and their appointment automatically terminated after one year but we continued paying their salaries while waiting for the Governing Council to make their decision”.

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She added that the immediate past Vice-Chancellor of the institution, Hilary Edeoga, had wrongly carried out appointments  without the knowledge of the governing council. She included that Edeoga did not intimate his successor, Otunta,on those appointments.

According to her “The Vice-Chancellor can hire on temporary basis if the need arises but he (Mr. Edeoga) went on a hiring spree and hired over 400 people knowing it is not his problem to pay them. The university is saturated with staff we don’t even need”.

“The past vice-chancellor acted wrongfully and criminally, why did he hire for the new vice-chancellor and didn’t allow him to hire for himself.”

However, Edeoga, in an interview with Premim Times, refuted the spokesperson’s statement, maintaining that the workers were duely recruited with their appointments rightly regularised during his tenure.

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According to Edeoga, “The spokesperson was not around during the regularisation because she was just employed a few months ago and the present vice-chancellor has employed over 100 people in the past few months”.

“We got approval from the Federal Character Commission and I employed these people and paid them throughout my tenure without owing like the present tenure is owing them 25 percent (of entitlements).’’

Ms. Odefa however disclosed that “The regularisation exercise conducted in the last tenure by the immediate past vice chancellor was inconclusive”.

Naija News gathered that  some of the dismissed workers  expressed how shocked they were  to receive termination letters because they had duely attended regularisation interview in 2016 under the former vice-chancellor. They however said they had not received their letters confirming their appointments before Mr. Edeoga was fired by the Muhammadu Buhari led administration.

An affected worker revealed that when asked to reapply by the management, they complied though with reservations that the vice-chancellor had resolved to sack them and “replace us with his kinsmen based on previous experience”, irrespective of their reapplication.

“He laid off 300 workers when he was the Rector of Akanu Ibiam Federal Polytechnic, Unwana In Ebonyi State and now 496 workers have been suspended.

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“We were not surprised when news broke out that the Governing Council of the university decided to sack all of us. We had been complaining about it right from the day he declared (our) regularisation interview inconclusive.

“The present vice-chancellor has employed over 100 people including the university spokesperson and he said there is no money and is telling us to reapply when the 2017 budget has been approved for the institution.

“We am pleading for justice. Why is he laying us off and recruiting at the same time? I just received my June salary alert while talking to you now,” he said.

When asked aboutt the controversy, he Chairman of the local chapter of ASUU, Chinyere Echendu, also stated that no staff was sacked.