Politics and the Appointment of Council Members, Vice Chancellors and other Principal Officers in Federal and State Universities in the North Central States of Nigeria

The study investigated staff perception of the influence of political factors on the appointment of members of governing councils, vice chancellors and other principal officers in federal and state universities in the north central states of Nigeria. Specially, the study examined the influence of political factors of partisan politics, ethnic and sectional considerations, religious affiliation, favouritism, the quota system and catchment area policy on the appointment of members of governing councils, vice chancellors and other principal officers in federal and state universities. Two research questions and hypotheses respectively guided the study. The review of related literature which was done under the conceptual/theoretical framework identified the influence of political factors on the appointment of members of governing councils, vice chancellors and other principal officers in federal and state universities. The descriptive survey design was used for the study. The population of the study was ten (10) universities made up of five federal and five state universities. The population of the respondents consisted of 11,582 made up of 7,971 staff of federal universities and 3,611 staff of state universities. The proportionate stratified random sampling technique was used to select 1,120 sample respondents made up of 767 staff of federal universities and 353 staff of state universities for the study. A 14-item structured questionnaire titled “Influence of politics on appointment Questionnaire (IPAG) was used to collect data for the study. A reliability estimate of 0.72 was established for the instrument. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while the t-test analysis was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The major findings of the study showed that partisan politics, ethnic and sectional considerations, religious affiliation, favouritism, the quota system and catchment area policy significantly influenced appointment of members of governing councils, vice chancellors and other principal officers in federal and state universities in the North central states of Nigeria. Based on the findings, it was recommended that a congregation committee (CC) and senate search committee (SSC) made up of impeccable characters be established in each university to screen prospective members of governing councils, vice chancellors and other principal officers before their appointment so as to minimize the influence of politics on appointment in federal and state universities in the North Central states of Nigeria. Keywords: Politics, Appointment of Council Members, Influenc