Nigerian politicians
often play dirty and for them the profane and the sacred are interwoven so long
as their (politicians) permanent selfish interest are served.
Abia state under the
administration of governor Theodore Orji is perhaps one place whereby politics
of the dirtiest dimension are played so long as the perceived opponents of the
current powers-that-be are at the receiving end of this vindictive brand of
politics to the detriment of speedy infrastructural development and
transformation.
For thirteen months and
still counting, appointees of the Abia State governor have gone berserk with
consistent media attacks against the person of the immediate past governor of
Abia -Chief Orji Uzor Kalu, known simply as OUK.
These vicious attackers
have become so paranoid that observers have been made to believe that the only
job they were hired to do is to pour unrestrained tirades at the person of the
former Abia state governor-OUK.
These career trouble
makers have in the past thirteen months embarked on a regime of
attacks against the man who was responsible for bringing to power his then
Chief of Staff Theodore Orji who was detained by the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission over Sundry allegations of financial indiscretion but who
through the magnanimity and ingenuity of OUK gained judicial reprieve just so
that he can take the oath of office to succeed his boss.
The latest of these
series of organized and well orchestrated attacks was the charade that played
out at the ivory tower called the Abia state University, Uturu,
whereby the so-called senate of that university descended to the dirty arena of
Abia state politics to announce that it has withdrawn a university degree the
school awarded to Chief Orji Uzor Kalu years back when he (Orji Uzor
Kalu) defied the comfort of his cosy office to enroll as a mere student of that
university and validly completed his course of training which culminated in the
award of the said degree.
The reasons offered by
the senate of the Abia state University for this obscene infamy is as
bizarre as it is absurd and laughable.
What the senate of the
Abia state university has achieved through this act of profound infamy is to
publicly ridicule that beautiful university that has produced several
egg heads like professor Chidi Odinkalu of the Nigerian National Human Rights
Commission; Peter Esele of the Trade Union Congress and big heavyweight
politician Mr. Anyim Pius Anyim.
For the benefit of
my readers I hereby reproduce the incoherent press statement
reportedly signed by Registrar of ABSU Mr. Ernest Onuoha and issued
by the Abia state university in which it stated that the university degree
awarded to Chief Orji Uzor Kalu is withdrawn.
He said in the
statement: “On the strength of the findings and recommendations of an
investigative panel into allegations of breach of the extant Academic
Regulations of Abia State University, in the admission process of the admission
and graduation of Kalu, Orji Uzor in the discipline of Government and Public
Administration, of matriculation number 00/42226, the Senate of Abia State
University at its resumed 69th Extra-Ordinary meeting of Friday 1st March 2013
and by a vote of eighty-eight (88) against three (3) dissenting voices only,
approved the cancellation and withdrawal of the degree result and certificate
awarded to him."
Onuoha said the decision
of Senate was based on the following grounds among others; the violation of the
Academic Regulations of the university on Admission-by-Transfer, which rendered
the offer irregular, ab initio; the non-completion of the mandatory six (6)
semesters (i.e. three academic years of study), before he was awarded a degree
of the university.
According to Mr. Onuoha,
OUK spent only two semesters in all.
My first reaction on
reading this story is to say that the National University Commission (NUC) must
immediately commence a probe of this university because if indeed it awarded a
degree to a student and years after discovered some “irregularities” it goes to
show that there are a lot more of such cases which must be uncovered and lot
more of the school’s lecturers and top flight management staff have serious
credibility question and must be fished out, prosecuted and sanctioned for
allowing irregularities to mar the admission and/or degree awarding mechanism
of that university.
The next thing is
to task the National university commission to also probe if the current visitor
to the University and the governor of Abia state has a hand remotely in this
whole politically- motivated withdrawal of the degree awarded to his now
political rival (OUK) and if the answer is in the affirmative, the Abia state
university must be made to purge itself of partisan/dirty politics for the sake
of the credibility of academic training in that school.
The National University
Commission is clothed with the powers to grant approval for all academic
programmes run in Nigeria universities; grant, approval for the establishment
of all higher educational institutions offering degree programmes in Nigerian
universities; ensure quality assurance of all academic programmes offered in
Nigerian universities and Channel for all external support to the Nigerian
universities.
Pure and simple, what
played out at the Abia state university is the extension of the political
warfare between the erstwhile political godson-Theodore Orji and his former
political godfather-OUK.
The question is why will
a purely academic institution allow itself to be drawn into the murky water of
politics? Why will the school authority order the arrest of students who
protested this gross abuse of power by the school authority?
The muzzling of protest
and democratic exercise of free speech in Abia state University reminds me of
the authoritarian tendencies of the British colonial oppressors who were
however stridently challenged by the ordinary people as captured in the book;
"The evolution of the Nigerian State" by the Historian Professor T.N.
Tamuno.
Professor Tamuno had
written thus; "The intensity and duration of opposition to British rule in
parts of the protectorate can be further explained by the effects of punitive
expeditions and patrols...despite the overwhelming odds, several people mounted
desperate resistance in their attempts to protect their cherished pre-colonial
values and institutions".
In the same vein, the
students of Abia state University will most certainly resist the current
attempt to emasculate their democratic freedoms and fundamental human rights enshrined
in chapter four of the constitution to oppose the emerging authoritarianism and
gradual involvement of the school authority in the murky water of partisan
politics.
Why will the Abia state
university so reduce itself from the sacred position of an independent Ivory
tower to the profane terrain of Nigeria’s dirty politics? Why has it taken
this lazy senate of ABSU all these years to set up a kangaroo
investigative panel for the purpose of fishing for phantom evidence for use in
carrying out a poorly executed political witchunt against the immediate past
governor at a time that the relationship between him (OUK) and the governor has
deteriorated due largely to the bellicose attitudes of sycophants who parade
around as political appointees of the Abia state governor?
OUK has in his first
reaction to the story that his degree certificate was annulled blamed Abia
state governor for this latest absurdity.
In the statement signed
by his Special Adviser, Oyekunle Oyewumi, said the move has only put to
test the pedigree of the men and women who make up the Senate of the university,
the credibility of the certificate issued by the school and brought to fore the
warped nature of Orji.
Oyewumi said in the
statement: “What the Senate of ABSU has done amounts to shifting the goal post
after the goal has been scored. No one can deny the fact that His
Excellency (OUK) was in ABSU for lectures and examinations".
The management of the
ABSU must be told in clear terms that we are no longer under military
dictatorship during which time the autonomy of the university suffered serious
battering with the appointment of some gun-wielding military generals as sole
administrators especially during the dictatorship of the late General Sani
Abacha.
NUC should
immediately restore respectability to the Nigerian university system by probing
the immediate and remote circumstances surrounding the involvement of the
Senate of Abia State University in Abia state petty but vicious politics before
a dangerous precedent would be set.
Section 36(5) of the
constitution provides for fair hearing in all matters involving any citizen.
How come that this ABSU’s Kangaroo panel never invited Orji Uzor Kalu to defend
himself before rushing to the public to announce the withdrawal of his
certificate alongside those of others who were cleverly added to the number to make
the action of the senate look transparent? On his part, OUK should rush to the
competent court of law to seek immediate redress.
* Emmanuel Onwubiko, Head,
HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS’ ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA blogs@www.huriwa.blogspot.com.
6/3/2013
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