Make varsities centres of unity, cohesion, Enoh tells NUC

The Vice Chancellor of Cross River University of Technology (CRUTECH), Prof Anthony Owan Enoh, has charged the National Universities Commission (NUC) to make the nation’s universities to become meeting point where unity could be preached and enhanced.
Warning that the country’s unity “could be given to dogs” if something is not done to salvage the situation, the VC called on NUC not to be concerned only with matters of quality and curriculum but that they should include foundational issues of disunity which, he said, are capable of undermining the nation’s development strides.
Speaking in Calabar at the weekend during a public lecture to mark the 80th birthday of Prof.
Kelvin Ogon Etta, pioneer VC of CRUTECH, Enoh charged Nigerians to eschew hate speeches and to work towards returning the country to its past glory.
“Beginning with appointment of vice chancellors, measures should be put in place to prevent their appointments from states where each university is located, with the added condition that no state should at any given time produce more than one,” the VC stressed.
He said once that is achieved, a deliberate policy of redistributing academic staff to universities away from their state of origin should be given some consideration as well, adding that such measures should also be supported with similar responsibilities on the Joint Admission Board (JAMB) to insist on compulsory distribution of quality candidates to states other than theirs.
Prof Owan Enoh called on Nigerian leaders to emulate the footsteps of notable personalities like late Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Alhaji Tafa Balewa who, he said, stood for the unity of the country at critical stages of the country’s challenges.
Stressing that the unity of the country was one aspect of the national life that should not be negotiated, the VC recalled that Nigeria’s founding fathers fought tirelessly to keep the country as one indivisible entity notwithstanding the socio, ethno-religious/cultural affinity which existed at that time.
Enoh who spoke on the theme ‘Dialectics of University and Development in Nigeria,’ charged the religious/academic and political leaders to rise up to the challenge of rescuing the country from the spirit of tribal and ethnic sentiments which, he said, has become a threat to the unity of the nation.
“If they fail to achieve this, all their other developmental achievements can, in a single moment, be undermined by forces of disunity which pitch each and every one against the other, thereby undermining collective effort that is necessary for development,” he maintained.