By Abdussalam Amoo
VOICE OF NAIJA – “If you want to be made, attend UNIMAID” has always sounded cool to us outsiders and admirers when we hear students and alumni say so. The University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) is more than a university; it is a symbol of resilience and academic excellence in Nigeria’s northeast. We are all aware that the late President Muhammadu Buhari already has the two international airports of the old North-Eastern State (Maiduguri and Damaturu) named after him, as well as the Senate Building of Borno State University and the library of Kwara State University. Renaming UNIMAID in his honour is a misplaced gesture.
There are several other official structures across Nigeria named after Buhari in recognition of his national contributions. If anything else must be renamed in his honour, it should not be the 50-year-old UNIMAID. The choice is not only unnecessary, but also misguided. UNIMAID is an established brand. Although it is publicly funded, like all federal universities in Nigeria, it is also an autonomous institution. The recent renaming appears to violate the principle of university autonomy, given the lack of consultation with the university’s internal governance organs.
This pronouncement recalls the controversial 2012 attempt to rename the University of Lagos (UNILAG) as Moshood Abiola University, Lagos. That move was widely rejected by stakeholders. It is not due to a lack of respect for MKO Abiola, but because the UNILAG brand was already internationally recognised and valued. The widespread rejection ensured that UNILAG remained unchanged. Incidentally, the Institute of Democratic Studies, which was meant to be built on the campus in honour of the winner of the 1993 elections, was never established by the Goodluck Jonathan administration.
Similarly, this current pronouncement contradicts global best practices in university naming. In many other parts of the world, particularly in the UK and the US, universities are legally autonomous, even when funded by the government. The state does not unilaterally rename universities. You wouldn’t hear that UC Berkeley or the University of London was renamed after a politician or monarch. There’s no “Winston Churchill University” in Britain, though there is Churchill College at Cambridge which was established for a specific purpose and with donor involvement.
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In such systems, if a university chooses to rename itself, it does so through internal governance processes involving its council or senate, consultations with stakeholders, and public debate, especially when the decision could be politically or culturally sensitive.
Rather than tamper with a long-standing academic brand like UNIMAID, the President Bola Tinubu-led federal government might consider formalising the locally accepted name of the Federal University of Transportation, Daura. It is already referred to informally as “Muhammadu Buhari University of Transportation,” due to its strong association with the former president and his hometown. That would be a more contextually appropriate and less controversial gesture.
As the nation mourns the passing of the former president, this is not a time to set a dangerous precedent —one that arbitrarily rebrands and potentially diminishes the institutional identity of a university that has stood for decades. Honouring leaders should never come at the expense of institutional integrity and legacy.
Abdussalam Amoo is an academic researcher in onomastics and linguistic landscapes and can be reached via amoo.abdussalam@gmail.com
