The University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) and its Vice-Chancellor have asked a Federal High Court in Abuja to throw out a lawsuit brought by former minister Uche Nnaji, arguing it was filed too late.
Prof. Simon Ortuanya, the UNN Vice-Chancellor, and other university officials are challenging the suit, which Mr Nnaji filed in response to allegations of certificate forgery.
SPEAR NEWS reports that Mr. Nnaji filed the suit, marked ABJ/CS/1909/2025, before resigning as Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology.
In a formal notice of preliminary objection submitted to the court, the defendants urged Justice Hauwa Yilwa to strike out the case as “statute-barred.”
They also argued that the plaintiff’s “motion on notice for prerogative writs is incompetent and wrongly commenced.”
Other parties named as defendants in the case include the Minister of Education, the National Universities Commission (NUC), the UNN Registrar, a former acting Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Oguenjiofor Ujam, and the Senate of the university.
The case was mentioned in court on Monday. Mr Nnaji’s lawyer, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), informed the court that he had only been served with the university’s notice of objection minutes before the proceedings began.
He said the defence planned to file a counter-affidavit the following day and requested a definite date for the hearing.
Justice Yilwa subsequently adjourned the case to 13 January 2026 and ordered that hearing notices be issued to all parties who were not in court. The Education Minister and the NUC were absent from the proceedings.
In their legal objection, the third to seventh defendants, which include the UNN and its officers, argued that the suit was not properly filed. They stated that the “motion ex-parte for leave was not brought within three months of the alleged incident.”
This, they said, was contrary to the Federal High Court’s Civil Procedure Rules and the Public Officers Protection Act, which they claim renders the entire proceeding “incompetent.”
The university officials further contended that the substantive “motion for prerogative orders was wrongly filed by motion on notice instead of an originating motion” as required by court rules.
A key part of their defence is that the Federal High Court lacks the legal authority to hear the matter. They insist that matters concerning “student academic records, examinations, results, and transcripts” fall outside the court’s exclusive jurisdiction.
They also stated that internal procedures at the university had not been exhausted by Mr Nnaji and that no fundamental rights of the plaintiff had been breached.
The defendants insisted that “no reasonable cause of action exists against the third to seventh respondents,” noting that Prof. Ortuanya had acted solely in his official capacity as UNN Vice-Chancellor.
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