THE DANGEROUS POLITICAL PUNCHES AT ABSU.
The inauspicious suspension of Professor Nnamdi Nwaeze of the Department of Economics in the Abia State University, Uturu, is raising more eyebrows than was ever expected. What should have been handled quietly as internal domestic affairs of the University has been allowed to trend badly in a politically very hot season.
This is not the best of times to clutch what might turn out to be hot potatoes. It is either that the authorities in ABSU are ignorantly toying with fire or may have ulterior sinister motivation reminiscent of the fifth columnists in an act of war. I suppose there may be a deliberate ploy to embarrass the governor using Professor Nwaeze as a fall guy. I make this claim in consideration of the fact that the issues of the salary structure of ABSU have been here with us in living memory.
When i led a delegation of Abia Infrastructure Mandate (AIM) on a facility tour of ABSU back in 2022, as one of our voluntary contributions to public advocacy, at the front burner of the complains handed down to us by the ABSU University team then was the lack of motivation of the staff over low wages. I can vividly remember how the Deputy Vice Chancellor pleaded with the AIM delegation to help them to put up a strong lobby to then governor Ikpeazu to urgently review the University salary structure to help in reversing escalating brain drain plaguing the institution.
We were even told by the university team that more lecturers were being lost through exchange programs than through foreign escapades for greener pastures. That certain faculties were being withdrawn by NUC due to migration of especially professors to greener pastures. The institution had become a shadow of its old self with their law faculty that was taking back to back awards in the law school now trailing others. The picture painted to the AIM delegation back in 2022 was dire and desperate.
We were further informed that the rate of depletion of their highly invested teachers was a bigger threat to the university than even the dilapidated infrastructure. It, therefore, baffles one that amid those desperate calls for incentivization of the university staff to motivate a new morale, the Daniel that came to judgment is being publicly humiliated by the University itself. We are prompted to ask, what exactly did Professor Nnamdi Nwaeze do wrong to warrant the assault against him by the university?
Now, the fire stocked by the university authority is building a backlash somewhere else. The wildfire has located the backyard of Governor Dr Alex Otti, who now is bearing the brunt of a decision he did not direct. We all know that this is a season when everything is politicized for political gains. Alex Otti is called names for actions taken by a few in ABSU whose real intentions can not be immediately determined. We must hold ABSU accountable for their own actions.
The suspension of Professor Nwaeze and subsequent escalation of the events at ABSU look like a well orchestrated mercenary dirty job to achieve a discreet sophisticated outcome in a most bizarre manner. Someone had conceived this sophistry to achieve set objectives while remaining under the cover of the radar. In all of this, the scapegoat is Professor Nnamdi Nwaeze, who also appears a dispensable commodity in the entire playbook.
It is at this point that we call on the blacksmith that smelted the iron at ABSU to undo what he or they have done for sanity to return to our already very heated political citadel. There will be no need to call on Alex Otti or even tag him in this situation of angst deliberately orchestrated to paint him black.
If Alex Otti can invest several billions to change the infrastructure story of ABSU, the issues of salaries and emoluments that borders on the welfare of the lecturers and other staff will not be too difficult for him to handle. His attention and those of the public on the ABSU salary and emoluments issue have been well cultivated and, of course, draw a lot of sympathy. We all want the best for our tertiary institutions in Abia for us to remain at the top of the education ladder.
The authorities at ABSU must take steps to deescalate the simmering crises created by this unwholesome suspension saga by immediately recalling the professor back to his job. This call can not be reverted to the governor because the suspension order wasn’t his directive in the first place.
The fifth columnists who mutated this big elephant must redirect themselves. We need peace and calm in Abia State as we prepare for a back-to-back landslide election victory for Dr. Alex Otti come 2027.
Dr. Engr Odo Ijere
Okpotemba Ohafia.
