A fresh crisis is brewing at the University of Abuja (UNIABUJA) as the institution’s governing council is at loggerheads with the management over budgetary matters.

At the heart of the new crisis is the allegation by the council that the budgetary allocations for the current year were made and submitted to the budget office of the federation without reference to the council.

The governing council, headed by a former executive secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission, Ahmed Modibbo, is accusing the AbdulRasheed Na’Allah-led management of undermining its authority.

The council, last week, directed Na’Allah, former two-term vice-chancellor of Kwara State University, to query the institution’s bursar, Rufai Baba, and the director of the physical development department, Sadiq Shuaibu.

However Modibbo who is a professor of history, says there is no conflict in the university when contacted by journalists on the matter. He said the governing council only challenged an attempt to undermine its power and statutory role.

The university’s new governing council was appointed in July but since it came on board there have been frequent instances of disagreement with the university management.

Modibbo, in a telephone interview on Tuesday evening, described the action as illegal and unacceptable.

He said by the act establishing the university, the governing council, through its finance and general-purpose committee (F&GPC) is empowered “to ensure judicious and appropriate use of all funds and monitoring of the university’s expenditure.”

The chairman said the governing council is also responsible for the approval of budgets of the university before it is passed on to the budget office, noting that until such is done, the management does not have the right to allocate available funds to specific projects.

He said the UNIABUJA management simply uploaded what was allocated to the university directly to the budget office without recourse to the council.

In his words “We thought that was undermining the position of the council and we took exception to that and demanded an explanation. We invited the concerned officials to an emergency meeting and both the bursar and the director of physical planning tried to provide an explanation that was not satisfactory to the F&GPC and the governing council as a whole.

“The council simply told them to do the right thing, but in the process, we discovered that they allocated huge sums of money to a project that wasn’t even essential as a priority project and it is also not an ongoing project which the guideline specifically indicated. But if they had come before the council, all these things would have been corrected to save the university from embarrassment.”

He said the council has suggested the reallocation of the fund to cater for the construction of more lecture theatres and that the authorities at the budget office of the federation had already approved the request for the reallocation.

Meanwhile, dissatisfied with the response provided by the bursar and the director of physical development, Messrs Rufai and Shuaibu, the council, last week, instructed the UNIABUJA vice-chancellor to query the officials.

The Education Committee of Parliament in Uganda is questioning Ministry of Education officials over the planned expenditure of Shs317b to oversee implementation of a Shs520b loan project.

The government had planned to construct 116 secondary schools across the country to absorb the growing number of learners.

However, the lawmakers learnt, in the written submission made by the State Minister for Higher Education, John Chyrsostom Muyingo, that 60 per cent of the said money would be spent on administrative roles.

Muyingo had appeared before the Committee to explain how his ministry plans to use $150m (about Shs529.1b) secured from the World Bank.

Muyingo said no doubt the rapid growth in the school aged population, coupled with the new demands posed by the pandemic and the huge influx of refugees into the country, had put further strain on the education delivery system.

He added: “This implies that the education system will have to significantly increase its current intake capacity if the country is to achieve the national universal primary and secondary school education by 2025.”

But the legislator representing Kassanda North, Patrick Nsamba, noted that for each school, it would cost government between Shs1.7b and Shs2.5b.

Which implies that the construction of schools would only take 40 per cent of the entire project.

“I have concluded that the range of constructing these schools is Shs2b. With 116 schools, we need about Shs232b. If we are having a loan and grant of Shs540b, the rest of the money, about Shs300b, is going into management. This is highly questionable, how can other costs take 60 per cent?” Nsamba asked.

To the dismay of the Members of Parliament, government had committed Shs42b to training of teachers and development of secondary school improvement strategies.

The Committee was also irked by the procedure the ministry had used to inform the final list of districts that would benefit from the said project.

Earlier on Tuesday, the same committee threw out Muyingo for failure to come with requisite documentation on the same project.

The Vice Chancellor of University of Benin, Prof. Lillian Imuetinya Salami, has tendered an apology to students of the institution.

She was also said to have also agreed that no student would be punished or victimised for taking part in the protest, especially for making her walk from her official lodge to the university’s main gate.

The apology was contained in a statement signed by the university Registrar, Ademola Bobola.

The statement read: “After due consultation, and in the overall interest of the general students’ body, the Vice Chancellor has, on behalf of Senate, apologised to our dear Students.

“This is based on security reports from the Department of State security (DSS) to avoid the students’ action being hijacked by hoodlums; and thereby prevent any form of breakdown of law and order within and outside the campuses of the University.

“Accordingly, students can login into their Kofa page as the extra charges has been reversed. Please disregard any message stating closure of the university before 12:00 noon.”

Earlier on Wednesday, September 15, aggrieved students of UNIBEN had ignored the order of the University Senate closing down the school as they continued their two-day old protest over the hike as penalty for paying tuition fees late.

Although the university management had on Tuesday announced the temporary closure of the institution claiming insecurity and the possible hijack of the protest, the students remained adamant.

Rather than complying with the vacation order from the campus, the students marched to the official lodge of the Vice Chancellor, Prof Lillian Imuetinyan Salami, and made her walk from her official residence to the university’s main gate on the Benin-Lagos road, on foot.

The protesting students made several video recordings of the Vice Chancellor, trekking the long distance.

Education think tank, Africa Education Watch has petitioned the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) over alleged massive leaks in the ongoing West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in Ghana.

The body said in a statement that it had petitioned the Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department to investigate the source of the overnight and dawn leakage of 5 papers including Wednesday’s re-scheduled Physics paper 2, Food and Nutrition 3, English Language 2, Elective Mathematics 2 and NAPTEX English Language 2.

The petition comes after the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) announced that extracts of questions for the elective Mathematics 2 paper and Section ‘A’ of English Language 2, were circulated on some social media platforms prior to the examination.

WAEC however said the circulation was not extensive.

The Council also rescheduled two papers –physics and business management.

Although the exact reason for the rescheduling of the papers which were set to be written on Wednesday, September 15, 2021, was not given when the West African Examinations Council addressed a press conference on the matter, some stakeholders attributed the decision to fears of leaked examination questions.

The Executive Director of African Education Watch, Kofi Asare, had previously claimed that the Food and Nutrition Practical paper had leaked.

However, WAEC disputed these claims.

WAEC previously considered suing Africa Education Watch over a report on its assessment of the 2020 WASSCE claiming the said report contained inaccuracies and was misleading.

The report alleged a number of irregularities witnessed during the period of the examination.

The 2020 WASSCE had some leaks and confidential information on examiners was also leaked which prompted a report to be made to the Cyber Crime Department of the Ghana Police Service by WAEC.