As the mental struggle and silent permutations over who becomes the next vice-chancellor of university of Nigeria Nsukka rage, it has b...
As the mental struggle and silent permutations over who becomes the next vice-chancellor of university of Nigeria Nsukka rage, it has become urgently important to lay the card bare on the table. Lest we forget, human beings are not good history keepers, it has been noted; but God is, and so it took one of the finest founding fathers of our country, a nationalist per excellence, free, open and selfless leader in late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe to show that there is no coincidence in nature by attracting and ensuring that the first national citadel of learning was located in a “bush” very, very far away from his hometown.
Nsukka truly became a people when the first indigenous institution, UNN was sited on her land on 7th October 1960. She was only heard of again during the Nigerian civil war when the federal troops first enveloped Igbo land through her as she was strategically positioned as the only linking route from the northern part of Nigeria to the east.
Fifty-six years now, an Nsukka man or woman has yet either to occupy any meaningful position in that school or got close to becoming the vice-chancellor. It is not as though the people don’t have the material, they have vast array of dormant professors strewn all over the country.
It is not just one of those injustices going on in Nigeria but a clear work of the unhidden dark hands of the devil that requires 40days of praying and fasting to conquer.
The only crime I know the people are alleged to have committed and are guilty of to deserve such degrading inhumane treatment being meted out to them is that they are passively combative in nature. They are confrontationally docile and innately quintessential of Akwa Ibom people who would satisfy a Stranger in expense of their own comfort.
Or tell me what in the world could explain what we have in the list of those who have been at the headship of the school from inception to date; Dr. George Marion Johnson: 1960-1964, Professor Glen L. Taggart: 1964-1966, Professor Eni Njoku:July 1966-1967:1967-1970,Professor Herbert C. Kodilinje:1971-1975, Professor James O.C Ezeilo: 1975-1978, Professor Umaru Shehu:1978-1979, Professor Frank Nwachukwu Ndili:1980-0ct-1985, Professor Chimere Ikoku:1985- , Professor Oleka K. Udeala:1992-1995, Professor Umaru Gomwalk:may1994-(appointed as the sole administrator), Professor Ginigeme Francis Mbanefoh:1999-2004, Professor Chinedu O. Nebo: june2004-june2009, Professor Barth Okolo: 2009-june 2014, Professor Benjamin Chukwuma Ozumba:2014 till date.
Certainly they are strangers to the land; where are the Ugwuanyis’, Ezugwus’, Ezemkpumes’, one could not find the Omejes’, Asogwas’, Onahs’, Asadus’, even the Odos’, Oziokos’ and the Abonyis’ are missing from this list.
Painfully man has perpetually dominated his fellow man to his injury.
Although it has become a perennial Nigerian factor, much clamouring to be in charge; people agitating to be in control of one particular position or the other citing sheer neglect or being sidelined out of scheme of things. Plenty of times, yet; very unjustifiably too the hue and cry has risen to an endemic level. Theirs also, unnervingly verifiable though are far from all sentiments, parochial or clannish inclinations that are redolent of the 70’s in Lagos and Ibadan respectively.
A scenario where their resilient youths in their quest for western education have resorted to changing their surnames, local government area of origin and state of origin before they could be offered an admission. A situation where even the below level six position made provision for in the constitution reserved exclusively for the people where the institution is located is not adhered to. Where those from Nsukka in the institution on the overdue list for promotion range from 17, 14 to 9 years. The Ivory tower whose graduates; men and women have come to be known as the “lions” and the “lionesses” has remained elusive to the people housing it. Their employable graduates with Nsukka blood and surely of indigent homes have become tourists to the school aimlessly wallowing about on sightseeing with their credentials.
To discover that it is still their “own people” stifling them is very heart searing. To cunningly subdue, emasculate and even supplant one another while feigning care, love and oneness is an inherent trait in man but it becomes despicable and intolerably a condemnable act when such is exhibited by a brother.
A cursory observer would unravel the “keep them in the dark plan” already hatched but cob-webbed in such a way to conceal the truth. There has been this generational calculation to forever decimate and impoverish this people intellectually by denying them access to qualitative education hence the “nwa Nsukka” syndrome relegating them to play the second fiddle while being viewed as the second class citizens on their own soil.
Too pathetic!
The only federal university in the country where such an oddity was heard of last was at the University of Benin and the jinx was broken in 2009 with the coming of Prof Osayuki Godwin Oshodin, the first Benin man as the vice-chancellor of that university, 39years after it was established.
That commendable feat in UNIBEN didn’t just come on a platter, it was the so-called society urchins, lowly men and the expendables that fought dirty and primitively while the elite and the paper certified theory-oriented professors sat back in their not too well furnished but cozy offices in their own estimation deeply satisfied and annoyingly unfazed with the status quo. The freedom fighters were not read but they loved their people more than the educated. They rejected every imposition from all quarters, protested in the streets – obstructing the free flow of traffic on the federal high way with a coffin symbolically nailing all forms of intimidation, humiliation, marginalization and overt domination to death. While one does not encourage violence of any form bearing in mind that you are the wa wa people - (loosely translate as non partisans to evil doing), one is saying that you Nsukka people should borrow a leaf from the Benin experience by saying at least No for once!
As an aside but very germane to the subject matter, it is a huge and daunting task awaiting the governor of Enugu state; Rt Hon Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi. An articulately astute politician you are, suave, affable and very rich a man, you must rekindle the fire of confidence in a people that has been so battered. You must through your conscientious resolve to deliver dividends of democracy to the people reassure them that they are not inferior to any group or tribe, you must force them to know that selflessness translate to neither primitiveness, timidity nor docility.
READ ALSO: YOU HAVE NOT DIED IN VAIN; MY BIAFRAN AGITATORS!
Adapted From Friday leadership, July 28, 2017. No 221 page 46;
"As UNN Awaits the next vice chancellor".
READ ALSO: YOU HAVE NOT DIED IN VAIN; MY BIAFRAN AGITATORS!
Adapted From Friday leadership, July 28, 2017. No 221 page 46;
"As UNN Awaits the next vice chancellor".
Eze Chukwudi Johncato
A Social Crusader and the Leader Ndi Nsukka Asadu Ideke Alumona
Leadership Forum writes in FCT, Abuja.
Leadership Forum writes in FCT, Abuja.
COMMENTS