NUC to private varsities: No compulsion in religion, respect universal spirit

The Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, has said there is no compulsion in religion and appealed to owners of universities to respect the universal spirit of the university.

Rasheed stated this in response to a report raised by Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) that Muslim students are facing forceful conversion in private universities owned by Christians in the country.

The NUC boss, while answering questions from journalists during an interactive session on Wednesday in Abuja, said, “MURIC has not formally written to us and normally we don’t dabble into religious politics. 

“In NUC, we are more concerned with our quality assurance activities. No form of information has come to our desk regarding the issues.”

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He said the commission had never registered any private university with a religious name but are aware that 60 per cent of some universities are owned by churches and some few owned by Muslim organisations but that many others are secular.

“Lately, there are varieties and options, if you feel you don’t like that environment change; go to another one – we have 111 private universities.

“We still maintain that potentially, a university is open to every creed, ethnic group and gender. We do not allow a university to say this university is for us Catholic alone or Muslims alone and others cannot come,” he said.

Speaking on controversies surrounding the appointment of vice chancellors across universities, he said the commission had no hand in the appointment of vice-chancellors for tertiary institutions.

He, however, flayed the idea that the vice chancellor must come from the local community where the varsity is located, but said the structure of the governing council was making it difficult for someone not known to emerge as VC.

For quality in the system, Rasheed said the NUC had given vice chancellors a directive to ensure that a semester lasts 17 weeks of teaching and examination and not complete semesters in six weeks.