BEING A PROFESSOR OR VICE CHANCELLOR DOES NOT IMMUNE ONE FROM FOOLISHNESS

BEING A PROFESSOR OR VICE CHANCELLOR DOES NOT IMMUNE ONE FROM FOOLISHNESS.

By Inibehe Effiong

It was under the leadership of a certain professor as Dean of Student Affairs that Kingsley, a student of University of Uyo, was murdered.

Kingsley was murdered essentially because of the foolish response by the said Dean of Student Affairs and other members of the management of the University of Uyo at the time to what was apparently a peaceful student protest in 2013.

It was also foolishness that made the same Dean of Student Affairs to oversee the dubious and wicked arrest, detention and prosecution of 44 innocent students of the university on false allegation that they murdered Kingsley despite the clear indication that it was the riot police that was invited inside the campus by the management that killed him.

I was privileged to lead the FREE UNIUYO 44 campaign which yielded fruit when the students were discharged and acquitted by Hon. Justice Joy Unwana of the Akwa Ibom State High Court.

That same professor, left University of Uyo, to the Akwa Ibom State University (AKSU) and continued with his incompetent and despotic leadership; but in a higher capacity.

The tragedy of Nigeria is that those who have not delivered in their assigned portfolios are often rewarded with higher positions.

How else can one explain the fact that Prof. Eno Ibanga, a man whose tenure as Dean of Student Affairs in University of Uyo, witnessed a tragic death of a student and a despicable oppression of 44 students, was the only “intellectual” in the whole of Akwa Ibom that the state government found suitable to be the Vice Chancellor of the Akwa Ibom State University?

To show that this man is a disaster, under his watch as the Vice Chancellor of AKSU, students have been subjected to avoidable attacks by criminals. A female student was raped viciously to almost a point of death. A male student was killed. It has been one tragedy after the other.

Yet, the society is more concerned that the said professor was called foolish than the failures of the professor. Being a professor or vice chancellor does not immune one from foolishness.

If someone behaves in a foolish way, calling him foolish should not cause any furore.

I am ashamed of what our society has turned into in the name of following a sick culture that tells us to respect, worship and celebrate incompetent public officers.

Let anyone who knows Prof. Eno Ibanga tell him that I said he should be ashamed of himself.

A time will come in this Nigeria when people like him will not be able to speak publicly. His record of public service is a sad reminder of the banana republic that Nigeria has become.