The management of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB) has explained why the university has been unable to promote any of its senior teaching staff to the post of professor in the past two years. The institution attributed the problem to the lack of a governing council, which has the authority to authorise such promotions.
The findings revealed that a number of lecturers who had been due for promotion to the level of professor for the past two years had remained in their current positions.
Some of the affected lecturers are expected to retire soon. But in response to the development, the Acting Head of the Directorate of Public Relations, Mr Sunkanmi Olajide, via WhatsApp messages, informed our correspondent that the absence of the Governing Council has made the promotion impossible.
“The absence of the Governing Council has made it impossible. And with the new announcement of appointment of the new Governing Council by the Visitor, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, we hope, when they are inaugurated soon, the newly-inaugurated Council will work on the outstanding promotions,” Olajide stated.
At the time of posting this report, the university’s spokesman had not responded to further information that certain universities have made similar promotions possible by going through their overseeing federal ministries in the absence of governing councils. Despite the lack of governing councils in their institutions, some federal universities in Nigeria have recently announced new professors.