The American University of Nigeria (AUN), Yola owned by former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, on Monday sacked over 400 workers.
According to Sahara Reporters, the Sack Letters were signed by the President of AUN, Dawn Dekle who stated that the university no longer required the services of the affected staff.
While some of the sacked workers claimed they were fired without severance benefits despite serving the university for about 10 years, Vice President, University Relations of the institution, Abubakar Abba Tahir, denied the allegation.
He said: “Ask them to show you their disengagement letters.
“Until now, AUN has operated a student-staff ratio which balance had continued to affect the sustainability of the university.
“It would not be realistic for AUN to continue to anchor its administrative structure on an over-bloated personnel whose role do not have significant effect on the philosophy of a development university.
“Thus, consequent upon the university’s new Governing Council vote to restructure the institution in line with its agenda for sustainability, a process of workforce rationalisation had been in the pipeline.
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“It is now time for the university to look back, look around and look ahead to ensure that realistic and globally competitive administrative practices can be achieved in structure, strategy and focus.”
He also added that: “Students are deliberately armed with lifelong skills and competencies to develop sustainable solutions to the myriad of challenges faced by society,
“The challenges posed by the unsustainable redundancies in AUN’s operational structure for the university is one that needed to be addressed ever since.”