Aisha Maikudi, a Professor of Law, is the immediate past Vice-Chancellor of the University of Abuja (UniAbuja) now Yakubu Gowon University. In this interview conducted by DevReporting, a few days before her eventual removal from office by President Bola Tinubu, she spoke on critical issues affecting the institution, including power crisis, drug abuse, and her journey to stardom. The mother of two broke the glass ceiling as the first female Head of Department in 2013, the first female Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Law in 2018, and the pioneer Director of the university’s International Centre in 2019. She served as the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) and introduced the ‘United Nations Law’ course on the campus in 2019. Excerpt.
DR: Could you give a brief background of who Mrs Aisha Maikudi is?
Maikudi: I started as a young person who loved reading books because I grew up seeing my father read them. Half of his bed was usually filled with books. Whenever he travelled, he brought back books for me to read. I always looked forward to that, and I would read them at a go, really fast. I am a fast reader and a fast talker as well.
I started reading John Grisham, and it had to do with laws. So, that got me interested in reading law. I was 10 years old when I gained admission into the Queen’s College in Lagos. You can imagine, all the way from the North. I lived in Kaduna but I am from Katsina State. It was such a big deal then because relatives didn’t want me to go there, but my dad said since he didn’t choose it for me, I should be allowed to go. My dad used to visit me almost every week because Lagos was the capital of Nigeria then. Also, his first cousins were Musa and Umar Yar’Adua. So I got interested in law, and when I wanted to leave, I was wondering what I should study, Law or Accounting? But I ended up studying Law in the UK. After Queens College, I moved up to Cambridge Centre for Sixth Form studies where I did my A level, then I moved on to the University of Reading where I obtained my LLB. Then I did my Master’s at the London School of Economics and Political Science and then came back to Nigeria where I went to the Nigerian Law School, did my one-year compulsory service, and then started working at the university here.
DR: Why did you decide to return home, when a lot of people would have seen it as an opportunity to stay back, having studied there?
Maikudi: Well, home is where the heart is and for me, this is my home, I love Nigeria. I can’t imagine living elsewhere, truly. I lived there for so long and I could have gotten a residency if I had applied, but I didn’t. Even when I was still a student there, I kept thinking that my dad was spending so much money on my education there, and that kept improving their economy. So I kept thinking, what do I do?
I discussed this with one of my teachers there at the A-levels, and he said that we are also going to cause a brain drain for them because they are teaching us, and we want to return to our countries. I decided to come back home to try to make a difference.
DR: So what has been your experience at the university?
Maikudi: Certainly not the same as I had abroad. I started my career here in 2008 from the lower rung of the ladder as a lecturer II, and I rose to become the vice-chancellor by the Grace of God. When I came here in 2008, I had a mission to do my PhD abroad, but my dad said to me, “Aisha, you are teaching people here, why don’t you do it here and experience and know what your people are going through?” I did that and it was mind-boggling, truly. The difference is clear, there is a huge difference. I’d rather not go into too much detail, but I know that there is a huge difference. However, I also know for a fact that things have changed substantially from then.
DR: Take us through your journey to attaining leadership
Maikudi: I was head of a department in 2013. Then there were only two departments in Law – Private and Islamic Law. Though my specialisation then was in Public International Law, I was heading the Private and Islamic Law department, and that was where I first got my administrative position and experience as HoD. From there, I became the deputy dean of Law and I was in this position for almost five years. It was during this time, serving under the then Dean, Arinze Abua, a professor, that the Faculty of Law in the university got its first full accreditation from the National Universities Commission (NUC), and then it got the second full accreditation during my term as acting vice-chancellor. So I am very proud of that.
So, from being a deputy dean, I became the pioneer Director of the university’s International Centre. This centre is very critical to us here, because this university is the only federal university in the FCT, and many international organisations, foreigners, and embassies are all based here and should have an academic institution to explore. So many of the collaborations we have built at the centre have been very helpful, especially with the various embassies.
DR: So now, as a vice-chancellor, what landmarks would your tenure be remembered for?
Maikudi: I was the deputy vice-chancellor (academics) before I became the acting vice-chancellor, and as deputy vice-chancellor academics, I was second in command and in charge of overseeing many other academic activities, which gave me the platform to form friendships with both academic and non-academic staff and students. That has really helped to resolve a lot of contradictions. So, when I became the acting vice-chancellor, I came on board when the university was in crisis. There was a local ASUU strike for about 92 days, and then we had the employment issue, where there was no budget clearance for new employees. Also, we had no electricity for a whole month because the workers’ strike crippled the finances of the university. There was no governing council for a whole year, and there were so many issues, like promotion and elections, that could not be resolved. Luckily, the governing council came, and we sat down severally with ASUU to discuss a way forward, they called off the strike, and they became very supportive. So the university started going back to normal. I was able to clear the employment issues to get the waiver from the employment office because it was a huge issue. Most of the people had been working since they were employed, but they were not being paid because there was no clearance from the budget office. So we resolved that.
It should also be on record that the perennial conflict between the university and the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) over admission was resolved, while the Council of Legal Education approved our Law programmes, and even increased our quota from 100 to 160.
We were able to achieve all these because everyone supported me, and whenever there was a need for any dialogue, I was open to it. We were able to move the university forward as one, we rallied together and worked like a family.
DR: What’s the university’s total enrollment figure?
Maikudi: For conventional and non-conventional students, it’s about 70,000 or a bit more. Undergraduates are about half of that, and we have distance-learning students. We also have centres, such as the Sustainable Development Centre, Leadership Centre of Excellence, Legislative Studies Centre, and Institute of Education, among others.
DR: What’s the capacity of the teaching staff?
Maikudi: We still need more teaching staff. We have a little over 3,000 academic and non-academic staff.
DR: How many programmes and faculties do you run altogether?
Maikudi: We have over a hundred programmes, 16 faculties, and one college with three faculties in it. Communication and Media Studies is one of the new faculties. I got that when I was acting vice-chancellor. It’s the fastest timeline that we have been able to get money into the university, and it was for three projects. It was about N1.6 or N1.8 billion. So I had to go to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to defend it. It was fantastic, we were so pleased with that.
DR: Has the issue of “Japa” in any way affected your staff strength? Do you track those who have left the campus?
Maikudi: This is a major problem, and we have discussed it over and over again with relevant institutions. They are trying to address it once and for all. My problem is not about those who leave legally, but those who leave illegally. What happens is that the government sponsors Nigerian lecturers abroad for PhD or Master’s programmes, but when they go, they don’t come back. When you convert the amount being spent on sponsoring one person, it’s over N200 million because of the exchange rate. That was why TETFund stopped that. Though the people who are there already will be allowed to finish, these lecturers don’t come back when they are sent there. So, the government is sponsoring their education for free, and we are not getting anything back in return. It is surprising to know that some would apply to go to the UK or the US to study, but they would rather go to Ghana or Togo. But when we noticed that on this campus, they were made to pay back, we deduct it from their salary. It is because of things like this that my university couldn’t access TETFund conference sponsorship for about three years. We just started accessing it in August 2024 when I was acting. There has been a lot of money that TETFund gave to lecturers for conferences, but some didn’t go. Some would say that they went, but there’s no evidence. As a result, TETFund blacklisted us completely and then we had to reach an agreement to start deducting from the salaries of concerned people because it is these few people who rubbish the whole lot, and it isn’t fair. What the university had to do then was to establish a centre for in-house training. It costs less to train them because we could use the amount that would be used to sponsor two or three persons to train more people, and we bring in resource persons here. So, that was what we had to do. But sometime in August or September 2024, we started accessing TETFund resources again.
Though there were still some issues, forcing TETFund to threaten that by February 2025 it would stop us from accessing grants again. This was because the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) couldn’t remit appropriate deductions from defaulters. But now that we are back on the Government Integrated Financial and Management Information System (GIFMIS), the deductions are being remitted to TETFund directly.
DR: What is the accommodation situation on your campus?
Maikudi: That is the number one problem. The university can only accommodate little over 6,000 students on campus out of a population of about 70,000. But for conventional students, let’s say around 36,000.
DR: So, how is the university trying to address the accommodation challenge?
Maikudi: The university is considering the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model because we are also reaching out to individuals and foundations. We have donations from foundations here on campus. So that’s what we are doing, reaching out to individuals, and foundations and entering into the PPP arrangement as well. We are hopeful that soon, we will have more than enough if all goes as planned.
DR: Meanwhile, there’s a group of 43 lecturers who accused you of victimising them because they said they didn’t support your emergence. What is the real situation?
Is it a group of 43 or 5, or 9? I think you need to find that out because many people on that list denied that, saying they knew nothing about it. They denounced that both publicly and privately. I didn’t victimise anyone. The university senate even directed us to do something about the people tarnishing the image of the institution, but we didn’t do anything. Changes happen; I was the HOD, I became a deputy dean, I was a director, a DVC, I was acting VC and then VC, so I couldn’t have remained in one position for long or forever. We have people coming up as well and we have so many professors. We have a top-heavy situation in this institution, with about 180 professors in this university and about 300 senate members. So we have top and bottom heavy and what we need to do now is try to balance it in the middle.
DR: Is it true that when women are in positions of leadership, they excel?
Maikudi: It’s extremely true. When I first came on board, the first thing that disturbed me the most was the lack of electricity and water. We made sure more boreholes were drilled, and electricity was back within two days. You know my students would send emails and messages thanking me because when something was bad, the next day we would get it fixed. For me, comfort is important and I spend a lot more time at school than I do at home. So, if I am not comfortable, how will I be able to give my best or do what’s important to me? That was why it was important for me that our staff and students are well taken care of. So at the centre of the small/minor works committee, we go around to see what needs to be done so that the staff and students are comfortable.
DR: Speaking about the electricity crisis, what magic wand did you deploy?
Maikudi: The government came in to rescue us through the World Bank and the Rural Electrification Agency (REA). A solar farm has been sited here. It’s fantastic because it is a huge investment which powers everything. The entire university now runs on solar from around 10 a.m., or sometimes around 9 a.m., till evening, before we then move back to the grid or the generators. There’s been a glitch about only twice since the installation, but otherwise, it’s been fantastic because when I first came onboard for a whole month, there was no electricity, and we didn’t have money to pay the bill. By the time I spoke to them, we were able to pay the bill gradually. We are very happy with this and grateful to the government. What is next is to include the staff quarters, so that staff productivity can really improve.
DR: Are you saying that all these things, like power and water, were left undone by your predecessor?
Maikudi: Not at all. The truth is that there was no money to pay the bill and the solar initiative had been in the pipeline before I came on board. We were just lucky that we could bring it to fruition on time.
DR: What do you say about the crisis of drug abuse that is allegedly rampant on campuses in Nigeria?
Maikudi: That is a major problem on the campus here. I don’t even want to go there. As a vice-chancellor, I used to receive applications from students willing to come back to school because they used to be on drugs, and were sent home for rehabilitation. So, whenever they felt they had already received proper care or they were missing the school environment, they would apply to return.
You know what we do here is to test for drugs during registration processes for new intakes, and for those found to be positive, we take them for counselling, while those with critical cases are sent for rehabilitation.
DR: Each year, what is the average percentage of students found positive for drug use and their gender?
Maikudi: I would rather not say because it cuts across gender. It is a serious matter.
DR: But what do you think is responsible for this crisis?
Maikudi: It is a combination of many factors. Parenting, peer pressure, societal influence, and technology, among others.
You know, a lot of people want to live comfortably, and they want to make money. So they abandon their primary responsibility of providing care for their children or wards. They would go out as early as possible every Monday to Sunday and would not return until very late in the night. When family values are lost, everything suffers. And also, there is a saying that we can give birth to a child, but not to their character. Even when we put someone right and they grow up, they have peer pressure from other people they meet. As you know now, children hardly live with their parents for long. By the time they finish primary and secondary education, most parents hardly know what happens to their children again. They would move on to tertiary institutions and meet all manner of people. Peer pressure, social media from technology, both good and bad, are consumed by them.
DR: How is the university tackling this problem?
Maikudi: When I was the director of the university’s international centre, we did something with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). We do seminars to encourage these students to talk about the issue, and the gender centre has been doing a similar thing. We are more interested in helping them get rehabilitated. Their certificate says it’s for character and learning, so, it’s not just the learning. In fact, learning comes second because character is first.
Nigeria has a lot of work to do in that respect because our population is very youthful compared to the global trend. As much as it is a blessing, the danger is that if they are not tamed and are unleashed on the nation, the consequences would be terrible. Also, in my capacity, I have been mentoring these young ones and encouraging others to give back to the university through similar mentorship initiatives for the younger generation. I started this mentorship when I joined the system here. Turning a blind eye to it means we have no future as a people.
DR: Are you saying Nigeria is sitting on a keg of gunpowder?
Maikudi: With the youths, yes, if we turn a blind eye because they are in the majority. Beyond the universities, what more can we do to forestall the growing social challenges posed by the youths in terms of cyber fraud, prostitution, drug abuse and others?
We all have to play our roles individually and collectively. I have been doing mine. I told you when I started, we see students who we know can do better and we reach out to them, wanting to know what the problem is, and make them comfortable. Some of my students even from the first set still reach out to me and we talk. When you see someone, just smile at them. It doesn’t matter, you might be the only person to smile at the person that day.
