By Comfort Obi
If you are looking for why a number of Nigerians think it is not possible for the Igbo to work together, look no further. It is not in the hilarious caricature photographs and cartoons being shared to ridicule the hastily established Ebube Agu, by the dilly-dallying, South-east Governors. No. It is in the statement issued by a Group which goes by the name Imo Elites, in response to the appointment of Professor Nnenna Oti as the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri. FUTO.
If you are looking for why they say the Igbo take the cake when it comes to petition writing to run down one another, the answer is in that statement released by the Imo Eltes
I don’t know about you, but I had neither heard the name, nor read about this Group, well, until Thursday, April 15, 2021. Perhaps, I never took notice. As you know, Nigerians like forming Associations. Like acquiring Chieftaincy titles, forming one association or the other is in our DNA. It remains to form the “Association of the Dead.”
I don’t know if it truly does exist, or if the name was coined and adopted by a couple of people for the battle the group imagines is ahead over the VCship of FUTO. But it announced itself in an obscene style.
Its language was crude. Its intention, mischievous. The contents of what it was saying, bitter. As a teaser, the Association warns that its members would march on the Ministry of Education and the National Universities Commission, NUC. We wait with bated breath.
Here’s why the group descended on us with its foul language and threat.
On Tuesday, April 13, FUTO’s Governing Council announced the appointment of Professor Nnenna Oti as the new Vice Chancellor of the University. She is to succeed the outgoing Vice Chancellor, Professor Francis Eze, as from June, 2021.
FUTO, established in 1980, is the oldest University of Technology in Nigeria. In its 41 years of existence, it has never had a female as its Vice Chancellor. It has been the exclusive of men.
But on April 13, Professor Oti broke the jinx. And she did it in style. She beat a field, well-studded with brilliant male Professors to clinch the high profile job.
Applicants were 29. The number was reduced to seven for the final interview and selection. At the end, Prof Oti came tops.
Announcing the result at a Press conference, Chairman of FUTO’s Governing Council, Professor John Offem, said Professor Oti scored a total of 75,5 per cent marks to beat Professor Ikechukwu Dozie to the second place. Dozie scored 69.7 per cent.
For the records, I do not know Professor Oti. But her appointment as the next Vice Chancellor of FUTO excites me to the moon and back. And it is not because she is a woman.
Her whole package excites me. She merited her appointment. She deserved it. When I looked her name up on Goggle, I was like: this is it. Rich. Solid. The Professor is a combination of brain, beauty, and brawn.
Having no brain for sciences, I admire any, every science-inclined woman no end. I was not the only one excited by her appointment.
Many of those I spoke to in Owerri, especially within the FUTO community, were happy. They attested to her brilliance, her eyes for details, her diligence to duty, and her unobtrusive carriage.
I was, therefore, taken aback when, on Thursday, April 14, a statement by this Group, Imo Elites, surfaced on WhatsApp platforms.
Signed by one Ken Uwandu J, the intention was to rubbish Prof. Oti, and the process which threw her up.
The statement had quite a few things to say, and had some choice words to describe the Chairman and members of the University’s Council.
Uwandu and his group called them wicked, and the process which produced Professor Oti evil and corrupt. If Uwandu, the character who signed the infamous statement is not fake, he should, please, be man enough, and stand up for recognition.
The group, and its statement, did not stop at trying to rubbish the process, it also descended on Oti. In the process, they exposed their ignorance, and zero knowledge of who Oti is. She was called unfit, unqualified, not exposed academically, not brilliant, had not presented any academic or seminar papers, had written for no academic journal, has had no experience in administration, and more.
But here is a brief on the person Imo.elites called unfit, not brilliant, and incompetent.
Professor Oti holds a First Class Honours degree, (Agriculture), in Soil Science, from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, UNN; a Masters in Soil Science (Soil Biology and Biochemistry option), UNN. She did her Postgraduate Diploma in Irrigation Engineering at the Katholic University Leuven, Belgium, and came out in style. She made a Distinction. She then got her PhD in Soil and Environmental Conservation from FUTO.
So, you ask: how can anybody who came out in a First Class from no less a University than UNN be described as not brilliant? How can a woman who made a Distinction in her post- Graduate course be dull and unfit? How can anybody who got her PhD from FUTO, a high rated University, be an academic push-over? None of the Universities she attended is a “kwe-kwe” University.
But the degrees and academic brilliance are not the only things that make her tick. What makes Professor Oti tick is what she has done with those degrees, what she has done with her brilliance.
A brief.
A Professor of Soil Science and Environmental Conservation, Nnenna Oti was a three- time Head of Department of Soil Science and Technology in the School of Agricultural and Agriculture Technology (SAAT). She is also the immediate past Chairman of the Gender Policy Unit. And she has relevant experiences to boot.
To her name are about 34 years in academics, research, teaching and administration in the Nigeria University system, and a large dose of exposure internationally.
Her work experience includes consulting for the Government and the Private Sector, ranging from TETFund, Anambra Imo River Basin Development Authority, National Biotechnology Development Agency and more. And, yet, this group says she has no experience.
The group, also, ignorantly said she had no academic papers to her name. How can anybody be a Professor, without writing academic papers. But here’s how much she has done in that area.
Prof Oti has written over 65 Academic papers, 40 Seminar and Workshop Papers. She has edited a handbook, delivered 50 public lectures, and had written over 10 Technical Reports for the Federal Government. Until her appointment as FUTO Vice Chancellor, she was the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Academics.
The question mark on her abilities by the Imo Elite reminds one of Arunma Otteh, former Director General of the Security and Exchange Commission, SEC.
On invitation to the House of Representatives by the House Committee on Capital Market, its Chairman, Hon. Herman Hembe, dared to question Otteh’s qualification for the office of the DG of SEC. Otteh felt insulted. And by the time Otteh finished with Hembe, and reeled out her qualifications, Hembe, literally, forgot his name.
Now, see where Otteh is, and see where Hembe is.
While Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was Nigeria’s Finance Minister and Coordinator of the Economy, Adams Oshiomhole, former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, called her incompetent. Now, see where Okonjo-Iweala is, and see where Oshiomhole is.
These accomplished women are even lucky. Nobody has called them “bottom-power” – meaning that they slept their way to the top. That is the burden many accomplished women carry in Nigeria.
In the case of Professor Nnenna Oti, they have also not alleged bottom power. But they are alleging corruption. They are alleging man-know-man. They are wrapping her appointment around their destructive politics, their politics of bitterness. They are alleging favouritism for her – on the part of the Minister for State, Education. And they are alleging hatred, by Governor Hope Uzodinma for Mbaise people, because a couple of those who contested against her are from Mbaise.
Their grouse, they wrote, is that Minister Nwajiuba and Governor Uzodinma, both Imo sons, deliberately denied Imo sons of the Vice Chancellorship of FUTO in favour of an Ebonyi indigene – Professor Oti.
For Uzodinma, they say his hatred for Mbaise people, made him work against two Mbaise candidates for the post. For Nwajiuba, they said he simply preferred Oti to Imo candidates. But I gather differently.
Ikenna Samuelson Iwuoha, an activist, blunt in capital letters, while congratulating Oti, mocked Minister Nwajiuba, and said he, Iwuoha, was happy Nwajiuba’s candidate did not make it. For Uzodinma, you begin to wonder what his interest is in a Federal University. He is not the visitor. FUTO is not Imo State University. They say he hates Mbaise people. Why? That is a political statement. Hate is a strong word.
Questions then: Is there any reason Uzodinma and Nwajiuba, both Imo sons, will not want an Imo son to be FUTO’s Vice Chancellor?
Why would Uzodinma hate Mbaise people? Does he not have friends and political associates from Mbaise? Does he not have aides from Mbaise? Are there no Mbaise people in the APC? Reading politics into everything is deliberate mischief. Every Professor who got to the final round is solid, sound and capable. But it had to go to one person – the best of the egg heads.
What has, sadly, happened to us is that we have allowed politics, ethnicity and religion to rule our everyday lives, to affect our reasoning, our thinking. We have murdered competence, efficiency, effectiveness, on the alter of politics, religion, ethnicity.
In the instant case, the grouse against Oti is that she is not from Imo State; that she is from Ebonyi State. So, how can an Ebonyi indigene, they ask, be the Vice Chancellor of a University in Imo? And, this is a Federal University. Has it occurred to this Group that the FG is not bound to appoint somebody from the South-east FUTO’s VC?
But here is the irony.
The South-east say their Zone is marginalised. Sons and daughters of the Rising Sun, a good number of their people are fighting for freedom from Nigeria over marginalisation. It is a Zone which, rightly, shouts and fights discrimination. Yet, they discriminate against themselves – all the time.
It was why Senator Theodore Orji, at a point, sent Imo State indigenes in Abia State Civil Service packing when he was Governor. I cannot confirm, but I understand it is one of the reasons those against the confirmation of the Honourable Justice Ijeoma Agugua, as the substantive Chief Judge of Imo State, are adducing. Married to an Imo man, with children, now a grandmother, they insist she is from Anambra, and so, should be denied the position.
During the Presidential election in 2019, a good number of high profile Politicians of Igbo origin worked against the Abubakar Atiku/Peter Obi ticket out of prettiness. One of them, who wanted to be in Obi’s place, reportedly asked Atiku to pick a running mate from the South-west instead of Obi.
But back to Professor Nnenna Oti. She should stay focused. And, if this Uwandu guy who signed the petition, and made all kinds of allegations against her is not faceless, I encourage her to sue him for whatever he’s got. I also encourage Professoe Offem and his Council members to do the same.
Let Uwandu and his group publicly prove their allegations. What kind of “bad belle” is this? Where is the Igbo unity? Whatever happened to the much touted Biafran spirit? God forbid.
Obi is the Editor-in-Chief/CEO of The Source (Magazine), https://thesourceng.com. Email: [email protected], [email protected]
