A FEDERALLY DISENGAGED DG/CEO OF NIMR CAN BE LEGALLY ELECTED NMA PRESIDENT, BUT A SITTING VICE CHANCELLOR CANNOT

The disengagement of a DG/CEO of NIMR by the President of Nigeria is an exercise of a statutorily-vested rights of hire and fire of Mr President of Nigeria. This right could be exercised for many reasons. It is not always that these rights could be exercised based on proven facts. In fact, a DG/CEO of NIMR could be sacked for all the wrong reasons. The path left for him in this instance would be to go to Court to clear his name or suck up to the President in servitude for future considerations as a loyal subject. Where an innocent man is disengaged, the legal option is a long call.

It goes without saying that a disengaged DG/CEO of NIMR is not a convicted felon. Disengagement is not even a charge especially when the reason for disengagement is not expressly stated in the instrument, much less a conviction for an offence. Even if one wanted to make a case out of the disengagement, one would first file a complaint at the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria for a pronouncement that the disengaged person has acted in an unprofessional manner unbecoming of a medical practitioner.

However, the question of whether A SITTING VICE CHANCELLOR OF A NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY COULD BE ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE NIGERIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION (NMA) is a totally different kettle of fish.

It must be noted that the question is no more about the illegality of a sitting Vice Chancellor being elected President of NMA than it is for the sitting President of NMA being appointed Vice Chancellor pari passu. In other words, would it be lawful for the Federal Government to appoint a sitting President of NMA to be a concurrent Vice Chancellor of a Nigerian University?

First, it must be appreciated that the office of the Vice Chancellor is a creation of Section 2 of the University Act, and the functions of the Vice Chancellor is enacted into law at Section 8 of the same Act. In the Act, the Vice Chancellor is in 4th position of the flow of University command, coming next in hiarrhachy after the Chancellor, the Pro-Chancellor and the Visitor. The implication of this hiarrhachical 4th position of the sitting Vice Chancellor is that any one of his superior could disrupt his NMA itinerary or order him around even in the middle of a meeting of NMA. It is just like a student running two programmes in two different universities. If the examination timetable of the two universities clash, the student would select his opportunity cost. The Opportunity Cost of a sitting Vice Chancellor who is simultaneously the President of the NMA, will definitely be the NMA which he is the Boss.

The NMA is a recognition of the law, and its activities are intertwined with the activities of the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) which is a statutory body. The position of NMA vis a vis the statutory position of MDCN places the NMA high in the administration of the medical profession in Nigeria. While the day-to-day running of a University squarely lies in the hands of the Vice Chancellor, the day-to-day running of the medical professional group called NMA lies squarely with the NMA President. Without prejudice to the conflict of interests for being an appointee of government, a single man saddled with the concurrent Vice Chancellorship of a University and Presidency of the NMA must be a Superhuman who shall arguably resort, in the final analysis, to be piling Opportunity Costs of university administration on the heads of individual Nigerian doctors and the dwindling medical profession.

It is of no moment trying to X-ray the legality of an NMA President simultaneously occupying the office of the Vice Chancellor, or the legality of a Vice Chancellor concurrently taking up the position of the President of the NMA. The University Act and the NMA Constitution are both clear and explicit on these legalities especially the mutual respects and jealousies enjoyed by the two lofty and demanding positions.

The debate on the concurrent Presidency of NMA and Vice Chancellorship of a University therefore goes beyond the laws and any tolerating document. The debate goes to the root of the fundamental principles and purposes for the establishment of the two bodies - the NMA and a Nigerian University. The debate also goes to the sycophantal basics, of whether in an association comprising over 80 thousand membership, only one person who is already shackled and bespectacled with the 4th hierarchical office of the Vice Chancellor, is fit to navigate the expanding perimeters of the vibrant Nigerian Medical Association at this dire moments of the sick and sinking Nigerian Medical Profession.

Ikenna Awkadigwe
awkadigweikenna@gmail.com
08039555380