Professor Nnenna Oti, VC FUTO,  Gets Heroic Welcome From Her Students

By Charles Igbo

For Professor Nnenna Oti, Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, it was a surprise joyful welcome from her Students after her brilliant performance in Abia State.

Professor Oti was the Independent National Electoral Commission’s Returning Officer to Abia State in the just concluded Governorship Election.

While a number of her colleagues have curses being hauled at them for their alleged poor and unbecoming performances in the States they were posted to, Professor Oti is being celebrated, nationwide, by appreciative Nigerians.

For standing firm in her beliefs, for not compromising, for not caving in to pressures to corrupt the outcome of the elections, Oti has become Nigeria’s Poster Girl.

When the pressure was much, she let it be known that “the Mother in me, and the Pastor in me” will not allow her do the wrong thing. She remembered the youths and the sufferings they are going true, and said, she wanted a better future for Nigeria’s children.

For her uncompromising stand, Nigerians are full of appreciation. One business man from Abia, in appreciation, gifted her with a very expensive car. Another, an FBI Consultant, reportedly gave her the sum of N100 million. But the icing on the cake was the reception given to her, on Monday, by FUTO Students.

As her car drove into the University Campus after her National duties at Abia, the students laid an ambush for her. In their hundreds, they welcomed her with drums, cymbals, dances and songs and jubilation. She has made them proud by keeping her integrity, her credibility in tact. By doing so, she projected FUTO as a University that is disciplined, a University which Vice Chancellor lives by example.

As she watched them, she stepped down from the car, and joined her excited students in the long walk to her office, where they celebrated some more.