‘Court did not summon, restrain VC’ — UniAbuja management dismisses misleading media reports

Quadri Yahya 

The management of University of Abuja has dismissed viral reports that the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. AbdulRasheed Na’Allah was summoned by a federal high court in Abuja.

It was also disclosed that the VC was not restrained by the court as regards matters of inauguration of the University Governing Council.

This was disclosed in a rejoinder publicized on the official Facebook page of the university. 

The statement strongly dismissed the media reports which it described as “smack of irresponsible journalism and the desperate manipulations of the plaintiffs in the pursuit of their nefarious purposes.”

The statement reads: “Professor Abdul-Rasheed Na'Allah was neither Summoned nor Retrained by the Federal High Court

“The attention of the Management of the University of Abuja has been drawn to misleading reports in  some news media that the vice chancellor, Professor Abdul-Rasheed Na'Allah has been summoned by the federal high court, Abuja to appear before it over the inauguration of the University Governing Council.

“The reports further indicated that the court has granted an order restraining the vice chancellor from conducting an inauguration of the newly elected internal council members of the university.

“To set the record straight, the court only ordered that all the defendants including the Vice-chancellor, the President, the Attorney General of the Federation and the National Universities Commission, be put on notice of the motion filed by the plaintiffs, to enable the Defendants to show cause why the prayers of the Plaintiffs should not be granted. 

“Management clarifies that the court did not summon the Vice-chancellor, rather, the order of the court presided over by Justice Inyang Ekwo was directed at the plaintiffs to put the Defendants on notice of their motion within three days of the order.

“Management also notes that it is not aware of any court order restraining the university from taking any step for that matter. If such an order is served on it, management will comply appropriately. Management states that these deliberate misrepresentations of the order of the court in the media were clearly calculated to create the impression in the public domain that the vice-chancellor had been found culpable of something for which he had been summoned and consequently embarrass him and the University. Nothing can be further from the truth.”