The management of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State, has said that the Vice Chancellor,  Professor Ursula Akanwa, had no hand in the last recruitment exercise carried out in the university.

The institution also said the Vice Chancellor did not substitute the names of employed workers, as being alleged by some job applicants.

A group of 127 sacked workers had on Monday called for President Bola Tinubu’s intervention, alleging that the management of the university sacked them on July 15, 2026, even after they were captured in the Federal Government’s employment list for the agric university.

The workers who spoke at the NUJ Press Centre, Umuahia, claimed that they were forced to surrender their appointment letters and identity cards by security personnel of the university.

But debunking the accusations  on Tuesday, the Head, Public Relations and Protocol of the university, Anyaso Anyaso,  said that the management of the institution had no access to the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System, GIFMIS, domiciled in the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation.

Anyaso explained that the Federal Government gave a waiver for the former vice chancellor and his management to employ only 426 workers but expressed shock that appointment letters were given to 618 persons with 553 of them captured on GIFMIS.

This he said, was in total disregard to the Federal Government’s directive that only 426 persons should get the jobs

The university management made it clear that salary payment provided in budgetary allocations were only for 426 genuine employees.

“Some one takes more than the number, where do you expect the vice chancellor to find the money to pay?

“Because the the number that government has said it wants is the one they have made the cash provision for.

“If it is one person that we want, we have to keep to it, that is what the instruction says,” Anyaso said