Professor Andrew Haruna, FNAL, FLAN, is a highly distinguished academic administrator and a renowned Professor of Linguistics and Nigerian Languages. He serves as the Secretary-General of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU), the central coordinating body for the leadership of Nigeria’s federal, state, and private universities. Prior to his leadership at the CVCNU, Professor Haruna built an exceptional legacy in university governance, serving as the substantive second Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University Gashua (FUGA) in Yobe State from 2016 to 2021, where his tenure earned him the accolade of the best-performing Vice-Chancellor among newly established federal institutions. He has additionally provided high-level strategic guidance across the tertiary education sector as the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of Bingham University, Karu.
His academic foundations are anchored in a deep expertise in general linguistics, phonetics, and the preservation of endangered indigenous languages, with a particular focus on Chadic language families of Northern Nigeria. Professor Haruna began his scholarly trajectory at the University of Maiduguri, where he graduated with a B.A. (Honours) in Linguistics in 1981 before joining the institution as a Graduate Assistant. He subsequently secured a university fellowship to the United Kingdom, obtaining both his Master of Arts and a Ph.D. in Phonetics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. His exceptional doctoral thesis on the phonetic structures of the Hausa language earned him the prestigious University of London Laura Soames Prize. Returning to Nigeria, he rose steadily through the academic ranks to become a full Professor of Linguistics and Nigerian Languages in 2006, later heading the department at both the University of Maiduguri and the University of Jos.
An esteemed voice in the humanities, Professor Haruna is a Fellow and former Vice-President of the Nigerian Academy of Letters (FNAL) and a Fellow of the Linguistics Association of Nigeria (FLAN). Alongside his extensive portfolio of peer-reviewed articles and research monographs, his international profile includes receiving the Kwame Nkrumah Leadership Award as an outstanding plenipotentiary. Within his current role at the CVCNU, Professor Haruna spearheads critical advocacy campaigns focused on university autonomy, technology-driven campus infrastructure, sustainable funding models, and international institutional partnerships to position Nigerian higher education for global competitiveness.