By Akobundu Uwabunkonye<\/p>\n
There is an anecdote in my own part of the Igbo society told about a woman
\nwho farted upon attempting to lift a heavy object in public. Thereupon, to
\nclear off the shame, she continued, using her mouth, to make a sound that
\nresembled the fart. An elder in the gathering then said to her, \u201cYou
\ncannot deceive us; we know the difference between the sound made with the
\nmouth and that made by the anus.\u201d Just follow me. The university is a
\ncitadel of the highest order of learning. To attain professorship in a
\nforemost university, such as the University of Nigeria, is to be (or so it
\nseems) an academic of the highest order. An academic of the highest order
\nshould be discerning enough not to take recourse in the fallacy of
\nspurious allegation. That two things exist concurrently does not
\nnecessarily mean that one has caused the other. But such a fallacy, it
\nseems, has been Prof Bartho Okolo\u2019s most formidable line of defence in the
\ntroubles that have attended his VCship of the University of Nigeria, my
\nalma mater, since late 2013. Prof Okolo, who became Vice Chancellor in
\n2009, was allegedly running the institution outrageously badly. My
\ninquiries revealed that it was only coincidental that Dr Emeka Enejere,
\nthe man whom President Goodluck Jonathan appointed to chair the 14th UNN
\nCouncil in the period when Okolo began to be exposed, is from the Nsukka
\narea. But how Okolo cherishes this coincidence! For it has provided him
\nwith the alibi he so badly needs to divert attention from multifarious
\nrevelations made about his graft and malfeasance as Vice Chancellor of
\nUNN.<\/p>\n
First, one writer said in the Leadership newspaper of 4 February 2014:
\n\u201cThe University (of Nigeria) has become a centre of sleaze, impunity,
\narbitrariness, and sundry acts of corruption.\u201d The Verbatim magazine
\nreporters, quoting the Governing Council\u2019s official document, said: \u201cThe
\nreality is that the administration is Okolo and Okolo is the
\nadministration. He is the Bursar and decides what contract to award
\nwithout a budget. Under the Fiscal Responsibility Act, this is a criminal
\noffence.\u201d However, Okolo\u2019s defence came in the Vanguard of 13 March:
\n\u201cTheir (all who objected to his style of administration in the UNN)
\nprimary objective was to put their kinsman from Nsukka as vice-chancellor
\nof UNN. To actualize the plan, they have to remove me from office,
\nclaiming that I am stubborn. That was the reason for those lies they told
\nagainst me.\u201d Prof Okolo\u2019s defences in other platforms are more or less in
\nsimilar lines. But it is easy to determine whether the voices that have
\narisen against him have all been motivated by no other desire than to
\nreplace him with an Nsukka person as Vice Chancellor of UNN.<\/p>\n
I live in Abuja. But, as an alumnus passionate about my alma mater, I have
\ngone down to Nsukka to make my own enquiries after having read and heard
\nso much going on in UNN. All said and done, on the balance, Prof Okolo has
\nseveral billions of naira to account for. Although on-going projects are
\nscattered in the UNN, many of them that are on record as having been
\nalmost fully paid for are still in early stages of construction; some have
\nnot even been started at all. In any case, I was particularly interested
\nin whether those who have insisted that Prof Okolo be held to account
\ncould be pursuing an Nsukka agenda.
\nFirst, recall that Mr Ebenezer Fayemi, Deputy Director, Tertiary
\nEducation, who represented the Education Ministry in the 14th UNN Council,
\nwas the first to get mad at Prof Okolo for the level of dilapidation he
\nsaw in the UNN despite the billions of naira he knew was at Okolo\u2019s
\ndisposal. After having gone round to inspect the UNN, Fayemi had got angry
\nwith the VC. Convinced that UNN had no hope under Prof Okolo, he
\nremonstrated with his council colleagues on the need to suspend him to
\nforestall further damage to the university. Indeed, it was Dr Enejere, the
\nNsukka man, who had insisted that Prof Okolo be investigated first before
\na decision would be made about suspension. However, Mr Fayemi was confused
\nwhen, days later, he got a letter from his ministry withdrawing him from
\nthe UNN Council. Meanwhile, I can see that Fayemi is Yoruba, and not
\nNsukka.
\nWhile Dr Enejere insisted on taking it easy with Prof Okolo, findings on
\nhis malfeasance continued to grow too egregious to ignore. Council
\nsubmitted the report of their findings on Prof Okolo to Nyesom Wike, the
\nSupervising Minister for Education here in Abuja. Members of Council were
\nstill thinking about what would become of Prof Okolo when an announcement
\ncame on air from the Education Ministry suspending, not Prof Okolo whose
\ngraft was being exposed, but Dr Enejere himself, perhaps for daring to
\nexpose the minister\u2019s friend. As the Leadership newspaper of 4 February
\n2014 put it, \u201cThe general perception … is that the removal of Dr Enejere
\nwas because the Enejere-led Governing Council refused to back-pedal from
\nits resolve to release the report of the Petitions Committee set up to
\nlook into the over 450 petitions lodged against the Vice Chancellor by
\nvarious persons and groups.\u201d People were then left in no doubt that there
\nwere forces in the Education Ministry whose primary objective was that the
\nUNN should not be saved but be allowed to be destroyed.
\nThose who protested Dr Enejere\u2019s removal included all the unions in the
\ninstitution as well as the Alumni Association. Majority of the members of
\nthese bodies are not from Nsukka. The UNN Alumni are still in court
\nchallenging Dr Enejere\u2019s precipitate removal. They insist that besides the
\nfact that no reason was yet given for the Council Chair\u2019s removal, only
\nthe president of Nigeria, and not a minister, was empowered by law to
\neither appoint or remove a chairman of a federal university council. In
\nany case, I find that none of the Alumni executive members is from Nsukka.
\nOn January 23, Vanguard reported a petition by the Civil Liberties
\nOrganisation (CLO) to the EFCC, asking it to investigate allegations of
\nembezzlement and corruption against Prof Okolo. The CLO had wondered: \u201cIt
\nis unheard of anywhere in the world that a vice chancellor of a
\nuniversity will award contracts running into billions of naira to
\nnon-existent companies. They listed the companies to include Enwerem and
\nSons Enterprises, Ottamo Trading Company, Ozetech Metal Construction,
\nNoble Tech Aluminium Industry and Chronicle Computers and Communications,
\nwhereupon they said, \u201cOur findings at the Corporate Affairs Commission
\nshows that these five companies are not registered companies in Nigeria.\u201d
\nThe CLO demanded an urgent and thorough investigation and urged the EFCC
\nto ensure that justice was done. Again, I can see that Mr Olu Omotayo, CLO
\nZonal Coordinator (South East) who signed that petition, is not from
\nNsukka.
\nDetails of the phantom contracts through which Prof Okolo and friends
\nplundered the UNN, as well as other cases of his malfeasance, are no
\nlonger news. They are contained in the Council\u2019s report that ran into 27
\npages. The crux of it was served the public in the Verbatim magazine of 17
\nFebruary, 2014. Several other writers have also exposed as much as their
\ninvestigations revealed. A Google search will serve anyone who wishes to
\nsee more.
\nHaving been inundated with petitions from group- and
\nindividual-stakeholders in the university against Prof Okolo\u2019s
\nadministration, the Governing Council could not help an investigation. And
\ntheir inquiries showed that Prof Okolo had awarded 113 contracts. What was
\nshocking was not just that the awarding processes did not follow the rules
\nbut that most of them were almost fully paid for even when they were still
\nat less than 20% completion. Some have not even been done at all. In all
\nthe releases that have emanated from Prof Okolo, nowhere has he defended
\nall the revelations of graft, contract splitting and money laundering made
\nabout his administration. All he labours to do is to divert attention away
\nfrom such reports. And he does this by suggesting that he is being fought
\nby those who want an Nsukka person to become the next UNN Vice Chancellor.
\nOne does not deny ethnic and locality sentiments in Nigeria. But in this
\nparticular case, the facts of Prof Okolo\u2019s malfeasance are there for
\nanyone to see and have nothing whatsoever to do with an imagined Nsukka
\nagenda. I found it to be only a coincidence that an Nsukka man chaired the
\n14th UNN Governing Council that investigated Prof Okolo. Did Okolo expect
\nEnejere to look away from his (Okolo\u2019s) graft just to avoid being accused
\nof pursuing an Nsukka agenda? Okay, will it then follow to allege that
\nPresident Jonathan who appointed Dr Enejere to chair The UNN Council was
\nalso working towards an imagined Nsukka agenda? That reminds me: Dear
\nPresident Jonathan, what have you done since you learnt that a minister
\nunder you, without a query or explanation, arbitrarily removed a
\nuniversity council chairman that you personally appointed, and whom you
\nalone have the direct authority to remove? Or haven\u2019t you heard that Wike
\ndid it?.
\nBack to you Prof Okolo, please find another defence, unless you want to
\nalso convince us that the Nsukka agenda pushed you to plunder the UNN. Mr
\nVice chancellor, do not deceive us; we can discern between the sound made
\nby the anus and that made with the mouth.
\nI weep for my alma mater. No wonder the world famous UNN is now lost on
\nthe world map. It did not even feature in the first 2600 universities in
\nthe latest world rankings. With people like Okolo at the helm, no one
\nshould be surprised that UNN has kept sliding down the drain. I hope to be
\nalive to see how Okolo will end up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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