By Babajide Okeowo
For operating an unattainable system, American University of Nigeria (AUN), Yola, Adamawa owned by former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar has sacked 400 of its workers.
The sacked workers, according to Prof. Abba Tahir, the Vice President for University Relations, AUN were sacked for having no significant developmental effect on the philosophy of the university.
According to a statement released to newsmen by the university, the decision to sack the workers was in line with a long restructuring process.
“Certain structural elements have been initiated by the new Governing Council of American University of Nigeria (AUN), in response to NUC requirements, mandating the institution to align with an approved governance structure for all tertiary institutions in the country. Until now, AUN has operated a student-staff ratio which balance had continued to affect the sustainability of the university.
This is clearly an uncommon and hardly workable tradition in all institutions and organisations around the world. Obviously, it is unattainable. Thus, consequent upon the university’s new governing council vote to restructure the institution in line with its agenda for sustainability, a process of workforce rationalisation has been in the pipeline’ the statement read.
Tahir further stated that as the university looks to the future, it will be unrealistic to have an over-bloated personnel
“It is now time for the university to look back, look around and look ahead, to ensure that realistic and globally competitive administrative practices can be achieved in structure, strategy, and focus. It would not be realistic for AUN to continue to anchor its administrative structure on over-bloated personnel whose role does not have a significant effect on the philosophy of a development university,” he said.
The vice president for university relations further stated that in the emerging sustainable structure, competitive personnel was retained, while others were disengaged honourably.
He said that all those affected were paid all their contractual benefits at the point of clearance, to continue with their lives somewhere else.
Tahir said that as a typical American style institution, AUN deliberately trained its students to search for sustainable solutions to human development challenges.
“Students are deliberately armed with lifelong skills and competencies to develop sustainable solutions to the myriad of challenges faced by society.
The challenges posed by the unsustainable redundancies in AUN’s operational structure for the university is one that needed to be addressed ever since,” Tahir added.
