Elias Omar will serve as acting president
President of the University of Jigjiga, Abdulaziz Ibrahim Ismael who sparked a storm of controversy by firing more than thirty staff a year ago has himself been let go, Ethiopia Observer learnt.
According to a copy of Abdulaziz’s dismissal letter, obtained and posted by Rajo, a Somali region focused web portal, State Minister of the Ethiopian Ministry of Education in a letter dated September 26 announced that Abdulaziz was terminated from the university of the Somali regional state effective immediately.
The termination letter did not cite any reason for the change. It did not even mention the dismissed president by name, simply saying “the person who was president was discharged and until a permanent replacement is appointed, the University’s vice president, Elias Omar would serve as acting president, as per the rules.”
Abdulaziz was confirmed as the university’s president in 2016, by the former president of the Somali Region Abdi Iley, who is currently behind bars. Like the man who appointed him, Abdulaziz faced several controversies during his time as president, especially in connection with mass dismissals and expulsions. Six months upon assuming his presidency, Abdulaziz expelled more than thirty staff, including administrators and deans, blaming them for mismanagement and lacking capacity.
Rajo in the past also accused of the president paying 100 thousand birr for the army affiliated Ethiopian News Network (ENN) to represent him in favourable light.
Prior to assuming his post as President of the University, Abdulaziz Ibrahim had worked as an ophthalmologist in Jigjiga, according to some one of the few ophthalmologists in eastern Ethiopia. “Needless to say, he is very intelligent, caring and treats every Ethiopian with the respect every human being deserves. His work ethics is unparalleled and hence the success he had over the past decade,” an acquaintance said.
Jigjiga University was established in March 2007, starting its service with 712 students, 66 and 99 administrative in three faculties in 2007. It has grown to holding capacity of 21,554 students studying in 57 various academic programs and 627 post-graduate students pursuing in six academic programs in 2017, according to the information from the university.
Main Image: The outgoing president of the University of Jigjiga, Abdulaziz Ibrahim, courtesy of Jigjiga University’s Facebook page.
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Ethiopia observer wrote this nonsensical article which is and reads like an oped. The article should belong in the your opinion section, if at all, for its character assasination of one of the few individuals in the Somali state or for that matter in Ethiopia who has had great impact on the health and education of all Ethiopians in that state. Dr. Abdulaziz Ibrahim is a hardworking and committed person and has a passion for the region and country.
Though he believed that the Somali state region could have produced a better leadership than Abdi Iley and has been on the record to voice his opinion for a better leadership, he also realized in order to continue his services for people that have been colonized and worse left behind in every measuble category by the century old successive Ethiopian regimes, with EPRDF and Abdi Iley he thought there was in fact a room for him to focus on his part to improve the state’s health conditions and while doing so has thus stayed above the ethnic/clan divisive politics. Dr Abdilaziz was appointed as the president of the university by former President Abdi Iley, who stated that he needed someone who can truly advance the standards and quality of education at that University. Dr Abdilaziz believed and continues to believe that he can have a better impact by delivering health services for which he was trained to do. Pressed by Abdi Iley, who in this case and many other times had a good foresight and intention to improve JigJiga university, he accepted the job and did all the cleaning it needed and has undeniably improved the standards of the university. One has to understand the complex relationship that one had to have had to have any sort of impact in Abdi Iley era. Dr Abdilaziz has done a heroic work by putting his ego aside and worked with a complex regional president and to suggest that Dr. Abdilaziz has anything more than that working relationship with the former president is absurd. It’s possible to have had a working relationship with Abdi Iley while opposing him on many other fronts. This article overlooked this important fact and has painted the work of a well celebrated intellectual and physician negatively and by means of guilt by association and wrongly, but to be expected from many so called journalists who lack the training and the ethics of journalism. In a nuthell, though Dr Abdilaziz may have been let go, I can assure you the reasons purported by this gibberish article are far from the truth. Unfortunately, it has become the norm for Ethiopians to push propagandas but character assassinations based on opinions should be avoided by anyone intending to have credibility, that includes Ethiopia observer.