COULD A SITTING VICE CHANCELLOR BE ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE NIGERIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION

The question of whether A SITTING VICE CHANCELLOR OF A NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY COULD BE ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE NIGERIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION (NMA) is latest discussion in the mouth of Nigerian doctors as they match towards the May 30th virtual Delegates Elections as recently scheduled by the National Officers Committee of the great Association.

The genesis of this discussion is the widespread speculation or reality of a University Vice Chancellor vying for the post of the President of the Nigerian Medical Association in the forthcoming election of the National Officers Committee of the Association by a few doctors called Delegates.

These few doctors, who constitute insignificant proportion of the aggregate membership of the Association, and in total disregard of the various calls for the enthronement of universal suffrage in the NMA elections, decide every year who the National Officers of the Nigerian Medical Association must be.

The bone of contention in this ubiquitous discussion amongst the Nigerian doctors is whether it is lawful for a sitting Vice Chancellor in a Nigerian University to simultaneously take up the mantle of leadership of the National Body of all doctors in Nigeria. The general dispute is whether the Constitution of NMA forbids a sitting Vice Chancellor of a Nigerian University from contesting and becoming the President of NMA.

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