By Osemudiamen Oziegbe,
Ambrose Alli University (AAU), Ekpoma, is in trouble—and not the kind that can be solved with more money, press statements, or cosmetic administrative tweaks. What is unfolding is a full-blown institutional breakdown, driven less by lack of funding and more by a dangerous cocktail of poor managerial leadership, weak oversight, and creeping impunity. The tragedy is not that the university lacks support; it is that the support is being squandered.
To understand how AAUE got here, one must confront the damage inflicted during the twilight of the Godwin Obaseki administration. The imposition of the Special Intervention Team (SIT) did not reform the university—it dislocated it. Governance structures were dismantled, academic culture weakened, and staff morale decimated. The drastic cut in subvention left the institution financially asphyxiated. By the time that chapter closed, AAU was already on life support.
Enter Senator Monday Okpebholo, whose early moves suggested a clear intent to rescue the university. The increase in monthly subvention from 41 Million Naira to 500 Million Naira, the implementation of the ₦70,000 minimum wage, and the recall of unjustly disengaged staff were not just policy decisions—they were signals of political will.
The reconstitution of a Governing Council under Chief Dan Osi Orbih further reinforced the impression that a reset was underway. But here lies the uncomfortable truth: you can fix the structure, inject the funds, and restore the workforce—yet still fail if leadership at the top management level is fundamentally flawed.
The process that produced the current Vice-Chancellor, Prof Mrs Eunice Omonzejie should have raised red flags. A selection exercise that initially ranked candidates based on merit was abruptly reset due to petitions, only to produce a drastically altered outcome. The mystery of how candidate number eight eventually became the first is yet to be fully consummated. When due process is bent at the point of entry, the consequences inevitably surface in governance.
Today, those consequences are glaring. Inside Ambrose Alli
University Ekpoma, the Vice-Chancellor’s office is reportedly overwhelmed—not by work, but by neglect. Files gather dust. Official correspondence remains unattended for months. Decisions that should take days linger indefinitely. This is not bureaucracy; it is administrative paralysis. Worse still are the allegations that now define the institution’s daily reality.
Claims of contract awards routed through family members and loyal associates point to a system where public office is being repurposed for private gain. If true, this is not mismanagement—it is institutionalised abuse.
Then comes the billion-naira question. Reports that a ₦1 billion bailout was reportedly fixed in a financial institution without Governing Council's approval—and without transparency regarding the accrued interest—should have triggered an immediate, independent probe. Instead, what followed was a hurried move against the Bursar, widely perceived as a scapegoat in a larger scheme. This is where the government must pause and reflect: accountability that targets the weak while shielding the powerful, like the Vice-Chancellor, is not accountability—it is complicity.
Equally disturbing are reports of financial releases—running into hundreds of millions—channeled into questionable projects such as the relocation of ICT facilities from the University Library to Elumelu center, a distance of about a hundred meters, without corresponding investment in infrastructure. In a university struggling to modernise, such spending patterns are not just suspicious; they are indefensible.
At the centre of these allegations is a procurement system allegedly reduced to a pipeline for siphoning public funds. When procurement loses its integrity, governance collapses. It is that simple. What makes this situation particularly frustrating is that it is entirely avoidable.
The governor has demonstrated goodwill. The state has committed resources. The framework for reform exists. Yet, the very leadership entrusted with executing this vision appears to be undermining it from within.
Arising from the ugly situation at the Procurement directorate, the Governing Council moved swiftly by asking the University Registrar, who is also the Secretary to the council, to advertise for the position of a Substantive Director of Procurement.
For implementing this council resolution to advertise for the vacant position, the Vice-Chancellor issued a query to the Registrar. Undeserving queries are flying out of the VC's office everyday to university staff. Some borne out of sheer ignorance. What a shame!
It is becoming increasingly evident that the current Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Mrs. Eunice Omozejie, would benefit from the kind of steady, pragmatic leadership once demonstrated by former Acting Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Sunday Olowo Samuel and others of similar administrative depth.
University governance is not a theatre for rigid experimentation or personal assertion; it demands experience, emotional intelligence, and a firm grasp of institutional dynamics. The widening gap between expectation and outcome under the present management inevitably invites comparisons, and those comparisons are not flattering.
Rather than fostering cohesion, the administration under Prof Mrs Eunice Omonzejie appears to have assumed a combative posture from the outset. By all indications, the Vice-Chancellor came into office battle-ready, adopting a confrontational style that treats colleagues across all levels—from the lowest cadre to principal officers—as adversaries to be subdued. Members of the Governing Council, Principal Officers, various Unions including ASUU, her primary constituency, now have bitter tales to tell.
This approach has deepened divisions within the system, replacing collegiality with tension and undermining the collaborative ethos upon which any serious academic institution must depend.
The consequences of this management style are now manifesting in measurable decline. During the recent accreditation exercise by the National Universities Commission (NUC), while peer institutions proudly announced full accreditation of their programmes, Ambrose Alli University recorded what can only be described as an abysmal outcome, despite substantial government investment.
Compounding this is the growing dissatisfaction among staff, who previously received salaries on or before the 26th of each month but are now subjected to delays extending well into the following month.
These are not isolated administrative cum management lapses—they are symptomatic of deeper systemic failings that call for urgent reassessment of management direction.
No development agenda—no matter how ambitious—can survive on compromised leadership. Ambrose Alli University (AAU), Ekpoma,
in its current state under Prof Mrs Eunice Omonzejie, cannot meaningfully contribute to Edo State’s growth. Instead, it risks becoming a symbol of how not to manage public institutions.
This is no longer the time for cautious observation or political convenience. The signals are too loud, the allegations too weighty, and the consequences too severe to ignore.
The Governing Council must be directed—firmly and without ambiguity—to initiate a comprehensive, transparent probe into the university’s administration. Not a token investigation. Not a selective inquiry. A full-scale audit of decisions, finances, and processes.
And it must not stop there. If the findings confirm even a fraction of these allegations, then decisive action must follow. Management must be held to account. And where management has failed, it must, as a matter of urgency, be changed. Institutions do not recover by protecting failure—they recover by confronting it.
Ambrose Alli University (AAU), Ekpoma, needs more than intervention; it needs correction. It needs a management and leadership that understands that public trust is not a privilege but a responsibility. It needs administrators who see the university not as an opportunity for personal gain, but as a legacy to be preserved.The longer this drift continues, the harder the recovery will be. Universities are fragile ecosystems—once credibility is lost, it takes years, sometimes decades, to rebuild.
Senator Monday Okpebholo still has an opportunity to get this right. But that opportunity is shrinking. Good intentions must now give way to hard decisions.
Because at this point, one fact is undeniable: you cannot rebuild AAUE with a management structure that is itself part of the problem.
The choice before the government is stark—act decisively and reset the system, or watch a once-proud institution sink deeper into dysfunction.
History will remember which path was taken.
*** Osemudiamen John Oziegbe,PHD, is an alumnus of AAU, EKPOMA Based in Canada
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