– Acting VC Makes List After Similar Exercise At IMSU
The appointment of 15 Professors at the Alvan Ikoku Federal University of Education, Owerri, has elicited heated controversy in several quarters.
This is coming barely few months after the Acting Vice Chancellor, Dr Mrs Stella Lemchi whose name is in the list of the newly appointed Professors was appointed a Professor by the Imo State University in a very questionable circumstances because she is neither a Lecturer nor a visiting Lecturer at IMSU to warrant such appointment.
Some persons have raised eyebrows at the development which they described as a ploy by the management of the University to fast track and actualize Lemchi’s desperation to emerge as substantive Vice Chancellor of the institution despite not being qualified for the position.
A Senior Lecturer at the institution who pleaded anonymity said, though some of them as Chief Lecturers are qualified to be made Professors, but were waiting for the newly converted university to operate for 3 years before aspiring to become Professors as stipulated in extent laws governing university administration in Nigeria. He attributed the hasty manner in which 15 people were appointed as Professors to Mrs Lemchi’s desperation to be confirmed as the substantive Vice Chancellor of AIFCE.
He noted that the controversy elicited by her appointment as a Professor by the Imo State University (IMSU) Owerri, may have been why she initiated the appointment of 15 Professor at Alvan Ikoku Federal University of Education. “In order to make it justifiable and less contentions, by appointing herself alone, she included the names of her loyalists and left out some qualified Chief Lecturers most of who were there before her”.
It was also gathered that Mrs Lemchi’s inordinate ambition to become the substantive Vice Chancellor against all odds has factionalized the institution making witch hunting, rancor and acrimony the order of the day thereby relegating peace, harmony and mutual co-existence that should be the norm to the back ground.
“Those who are opposed to the Acting Vice Chancellor’s inordinate ambition have become endangered species who are often victimized and removed as Heads of Departments, Deans or other positions they occupy. This has made most people to become cowards to avoid being persecuted when she eventually assumes office”.
“It is obvious that she is taking advantage of her closeness to the Chairman of the Governing Council, Barr Joy Emordi to perpetrate in all kinds of impunity”.
