UNN Troubles: Okolo, Please Find another Defence; Your Nsukka-Agenda Tantrum is Diversionary

There is an anecdote in my own part of the Igbo society told about a woman
who farted upon attempting to lift a heavy object in public. Thereupon, to
clear off the shame, she continued, using her mouth, to make a sound that
resembled the fart. An elder in the gathering then said to her, “You
cannot deceive us; we know the difference between the sound made with the
mouth and that made by the anus.” Just follow me. The university is a
citadel of the highest order of learning. To attain professorship in a
foremost university, such as the University of Nigeria, is to be (or so it
seems) an academic of the highest order. An academic of the highest order
should be discerning enough not to take recourse in the fallacy of
spurious allegation. That two things exist concurrently does not
necessarily mean that one has caused the other. But such a fallacy, it
seems, has been Prof Bartho Okolo’s most formidable line of defence in the
troubles that have attended his VCship of the University of Nigeria, my
alma mater, since late 2013. Prof Okolo, who became Vice Chancellor in
2009, was allegedly running the institution outrageously badly.

My
inquiries revealed that it was only coincidental that Dr Emeka Enejere,
the man whom President Goodluck Jonathan appointed to chair the 14th UNN
Council in the period when Okolo began to be exposed, is from the Nsukka
area. But how Okolo cherishes this coincidence! For it has provided him
with the alibi he so badly needs to divert attention from multifarious
revelations made about his graft and malfeasance as Vice Chancellor of
UNN.

First, one writer said in the Leadership newspaper of 4 February 2014:
“The University (of Nigeria) has become a centre of sleaze, impunity,
arbitrariness, and sundry acts of corruption.” The Verbatim magazine
reporters, quoting the Governing Council’s official document, said: “The
reality is that the administration is Okolo and Okolo is the
administration. He is the Bursar and decides what contract to award
without a budget. Under the Fiscal Responsibility Act, this is a criminal
offence.” However, Okolo’s defence came in the Vanguard of 13 March:
“Their (all who objected to his style of administration in the UNN)
primary objective was to put their kinsman from Nsukka as vice-chancellor
of UNN. To actualize the plan, they have to remove me from office,
claiming that I am stubborn. That was the reason for those lies they told
against me.” Prof Okolo’s defences in other platforms are more or less in
similar lines. But it is easy to determine whether the voices that have
arisen against him have all been motivated by no other desire than to
replace him with an Nsukka person as Vice Chancellor of UNN.

I live in Abuja. But, as an alumnus passionate about my alma mater, I have
gone down to Nsukka to make my own enquiries after having read and heard
so much going on in UNN. All said and done, on the balance, Prof Okolo has
several billions of naira to account for. Although on-going projects are
scattered in the UNN, many of them that are on record as having been
almost fully paid for are still in early stages of construction; some have
not even been started at all. In any case, I was particularly interested
in whether those who have insisted that Prof Okolo be held to account
could be pursuing an Nsukka agenda.
First, recall that Mr Ebenezer Fayemi, Deputy Director, Tertiary
Education, who represented the Education Ministry in the 14th UNN Council,
was the first to get mad at Prof Okolo for the level of dilapidation he
saw in the UNN despite the billions of naira he knew was at Okolo’s
disposal. After having gone round to inspect the UNN, Fayemi had got angry
with the VC. Convinced that UNN had no hope under Prof Okolo, he
remonstrated with his council colleagues on the need to suspend him to
forestall further damage to the university. Indeed, it was Dr Enejere, the
Nsukka man, who had insisted that Prof Okolo be investigated first before
a decision would be made about suspension. However, Mr Fayemi was confused
when, days later, he got a letter from his ministry withdrawing him from
the UNN Council. Meanwhile, I can see that Fayemi is Yoruba, and not
Nsukka.
While Dr Enejere insisted on taking it easy with Prof Okolo, findings on
his malfeasance continued to grow too egregious to ignore. Council
submitted the report of their findings on Prof Okolo to Nyesom Wike, the
Supervising Minister for Education here in Abuja. Members of Council were
still thinking about what would become of Prof Okolo when an announcement
came on air from the Education Ministry suspending, not Prof Okolo whose
graft was being exposed, but Dr Enejere himself, perhaps for daring to
expose the minister’s friend. As the Leadership newspaper of 4 February
2014 put it, “The general perception … is that the removal of Dr Enejere
was because the Enejere-led Governing Council refused to back-pedal from
its resolve to release the report of the Petitions Committee set up to
look into the over 450 petitions lodged against the Vice Chancellor by
various persons and groups.” People were then left in no doubt that there
were forces in the Education Ministry whose primary objective was that the
UNN should not be saved but be allowed to be destroyed.
Those who protested Dr Enejere’s removal included all the unions in the
institution as well as the Alumni Association. Majority of the members of
these bodies are not from Nsukka. The UNN Alumni are still in court
challenging Dr Enejere’s precipitate removal. They insist that besides the
fact that no reason was yet given for the Council Chair’s removal, only
the president of Nigeria, and not a minister, was empowered by law to
either appoint or remove a chairman of a federal university council. In
any case, I find that none of the Alumni executive members is from Nsukka.
On January 23, Vanguard reported a petition by the Civil Liberties
Organisation (CLO) to the EFCC, asking it to investigate allegations of
embezzlement and corruption against Prof Okolo. The CLO had wondered: “It
is unheard of anywhere in the world that a vice chancellor of a
university will award contracts running into billions of naira to
non-existent companies. They listed the companies to include Enwerem and
Sons Enterprises, Ottamo Trading Company, Ozetech Metal Construction,
Noble Tech Aluminium Industry and Chronicle Computers and Communications,
whereupon they said, “Our findings at the Corporate Affairs Commission
shows that these five companies are not registered companies in Nigeria.”
The CLO demanded an urgent and thorough investigation and urged the EFCC
to ensure that justice was done. Again, I can see that Mr Olu Omotayo, CLO
Zonal Coordinator (South East) who signed that petition, is not from
Nsukka.
Details of the phantom contracts through which Prof Okolo and friends
plundered the UNN, as well as other cases of his malfeasance, are no
longer news. They are contained in the Council’s report that ran into 27
pages. The crux of it was served the public in the Verbatim magazine of 17
February, 2014. Several other writers have also exposed as much as their
investigations revealed. A Google search will serve anyone who wishes to
see more.
Having been inundated with petitions from group- and
individual-stakeholders in the university against Prof Okolo’s
administration, the Governing Council could not help an investigation. And
their inquiries showed that Prof Okolo had awarded 113 contracts. What was
shocking was not just that the awarding processes did not follow the rules
but that most of them were almost fully paid for even when they were still
at less than 20% completion. Some have not even been done at all. In all
the releases that have emanated from Prof Okolo, nowhere has he defended
all the revelations of graft, contract splitting and money laundering made
about his administration. All he labours to do is to divert attention away
from such reports. And he does this by suggesting that he is being fought
by those who want an Nsukka person to become the next UNN Vice Chancellor.
One does not deny ethnic and locality sentiments in Nigeria. But in this
particular case, the facts of Prof Okolo’s malfeasance are there for
anyone to see and have nothing whatsoever to do with an imagined Nsukka
agenda. I found it to be only a coincidence that an Nsukka man chaired the
14th UNN Governing Council that investigated Prof Okolo. Did Okolo expect
Enejere to look away from his (Okolo’s) graft just to avoid being accused
of pursuing an Nsukka agenda? Okay, will it then follow to allege that
President Jonathan who appointed Dr Enejere to chair The UNN Council was
also working towards an imagined Nsukka agenda? That reminds me: Dear
President Jonathan, what have you done since you learnt that a minister
under you, without a query or explanation, arbitrarily removed a
university council chairman that you personally appointed, and whom you
alone have the direct authority to remove? Or haven’t you heard that Wike
did it?.
Back to you Prof Okolo, please find another defence, unless you want to
also convince us that the Nsukka agenda pushed you to plunder the UNN. Mr
Vice chancellor, do not deceive us; we can discern between the sound made
by the anus and that made with the mouth.
I weep for my alma mater. No wonder the world famous UNN is now lost on
the world map. It did not even feature in the first 2600 universities in
the latest world rankings. With people like Okolo at the helm, no one
should be surprised that UNN has kept sliding down the drain. I hope to be
alive to see how Okolo will end up.