The Vice Chancellor of the Imo State University Owerri, Professor Aloysius Ukachukwu Awuzie is now at the cross-roads of decision on whether to continue his services in the university under prevailing unconducive economic atmosphere or to resign the appointment and face social humiliation as threatened by superior powers.
Following one recent publication that revealed the proposed secret plans or decision of the Vice Chancellor to resign his position as a result of the inconsistency of the state chief executive, Chief Owelle Rochas Okorocha, on the much orchestrated free education at the Imo State University which has left the institution in poverty despondency and confusion, the vice chancellor is presently unsettled.
Professor Awuzie had disclosed to some of his confidants that the governor has not been sincere with the free education programme as the individual cheques issued to the Imo State students at the institution are not worth even tissue papers and that government does not pay into their coffers the pronounced grant of N250 million, making it difficult for the authorities to pay staff salaries and run the administration of the university, conveniently.
He was alleged to have confided in these persons that the only money that gets into the university accounts were the sum of N20, 000 paid by the individual students for the issuance of the N100, 000 cheques and the acceptance fee paid by new entrants hence the authorities were forced to go caps in hands begging for funds to run the university but were at the same time forced to maintain sealed lips.
Sources close to the government house, disclosed that on reading the newspaper story and following a radio programme in which Professor Awuzie was alleged to have said that what Imo State government was offering was true tuition and not full free education, the state governor had threatened to humiliate Professor Awuzie if he attempts to resign his appointment reminding him that he had traded his vociferous trade unionist voice for the exalted office of Vice-Chancellor.
It was alleged that before he took up the job of Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Awuzie had been under oath and signed some documents indicating he must abide by the orders and actions of the state government and do nothing on the contrary.
Meanwhile the university has been said to have lost accreditation of its several departments and that last December the university staff went home without their December salaries while Professor Awuzie had to source for bank loans to pay the November emoluments of the workers.
The situation as at now has left the Vice Chancellor in a cold situation having lost his membership of the Academic Staff Union of the Universities where he held sway as its former chairman but has now been derobed and of course subjected to treatment as a leper among his former colleagues. No university can even come to his rescue for betraying an Association that offered him a life line.
It will be recalled that it is the same scenario and claim of inconsistency over the true Education Programme by the state governor that forced Chief Clement Owuna to resign his appointment as pro-chancellor and chairman of governing council of the same university and not his ambition to contest for the senate seat of Imo North Senatorial zone, as erroneously insinuated in certain quarters by unscrupulous elements.
Meanwhile, Professor Awuzie has not been happy with the Community Watchdog Newspaper publication that exposed his secret plans and has placed him as loggerheads with his mentor.
Courtesy: Community Watchdog Newspaper
