What is wrong with us? Are we cursed, or are we the cause? I borrowed those clichés from the campaign slogan of a former Anambra State governor because they tallied with my immediate reactions after reading the piece titled “Rescuing the University of Nigeria, Keeping to the Rules and Advancing to a New Order”, which appeared in the May 5, 2025 edition of BusinessDay newspaper.
Two crucial points struck me even before I proceeded to read that lengthy article by one Anthony Asogwa. One, going by the surname, I rushed to the conclusion that the author is a fellow Nsukka man, most likely from the Ibagwa area of the clan.
Secondly, from the wordy heading of his write-up, it was obvious that Asogwa—if truly he is who he pretends to be—had a lot to say. Or his principals painted a damning picture for him about what is happening or has happened at the University of Nigeria.
He broached the idea of rescue, giving the impression that the university must have been hijacked or abducted by those he chose to allude to. Then, he advanced the notion of due process by espousing “keeping to the rules” before capping it up with “advancing to a new order”.
I have the eerie feeling that even after crafting the headline to his article, Asogwa must have been sweating profusely, as those engaged in word-weaving are wont to. As is customary in our place, I have to tell Asogwa, Dee jee, aloo (well done, welcome), for the great job he has done for his sponsors.
The tone and direction of Asogwa’s treatise reflect what could be described as provincial dystopia. In our part of Enugu State, we are too given to bandwagon mentality, even over things that are beyond our immediate comprehension.
Only those who are able to dissect the major issue that prompted Asogwa’s think piece will understand that it was this issue—rather than any appeal to legalism or tradition—that gave rise to the winding arguments in the piece under reference.
Asogwa let the cat out of the bag at paragraph nine of his essay:
“The effort to impose Ortuanya on the University of Nigeria is at the centre of the struggle that culminated in the removal of General Ike Nwachukwu as Chairman of the Governing Council.
“It was also the effort at having Ortuanya that led the Council to dispense with the time-tested protocol whereby Vice Chancellorship candidates are benchmarked against the requirements for promotion to Professorship of the University of Nigeria as a shortlisting requirement.
“Professor Ortuanya left the University of Nigeria as a Lecturer I to become a professor at ESUT. Benchmarked against guidelines for promotion as used at UNN, his current CV will at best secure him a position of senior lecturer. This is the candidate that the Enugu State Government wants to inflict on the Governing Council and the University of Nigeria as the next Vice Chancellor.”
So, having come to this juncture where we have denuded, as it were, Asogwa’s grouse on behalf of his sponsors, it becomes apparent that the same Nsukka-on-Nsukka bickering is playing out once again at the University of Nigeria.
It is on record that, as a cultural zone and host community of the premier university, Nsukka people have on many occasions agitated to be allowed to preside over the affairs of the university from the office of the vice chancellor.
Regrettably, at a point when the feasibility of such a possibility became a matter of time, our people started the campaigns of self-destruction through internal dissension and division.
What Asogwa and his principals are up in arms against is the possibility that a person who is perceived not to be from the core Nsukka area should be made vice chancellor. This apparent display of emotional inferiority of mobs has always been the bane of Nsukka, both in politics and development. The bandwagon approach to nearly every issue curtails our ability to reason properly or broaden our perspectives in critical thinking.
Come to think of it. The entire bellyaching by Asogwa revolves around his speculation that a fellow Nsukka man, in the person of Professor Ortuanya, stands a chance to become substantive Vice Chancellor.
Read his ninth paragraph’s opening and last sentences:
“The effort to impose Ortuanya on the University of Nigeria is at the centre of the struggle that culminated in the removal of General Ike Nwachukwu as Chairman of the Governing Council…
“Professor Ortuanya left the University of Nigeria as a Lecturer I to become a professor at ESUT. Benchmarked against guidelines for promotion as used at UNN, his current CV will at best secure him a position of senior lecturer. This is the candidate that the Enugu State Government wants to inflict on the Governing Council and the University of Nigeria as the next Vice Chancellor.”
What Asogwa and his paymasters appear to be saying is that they now know more than the university—that they can constitute themselves as both the accuser and adjudicator.
The entire intellectual circumbendibus in the write-up was to mask their aversion to a non-core son becoming VC of UNN. How else can a person cut his nose to spite his face? Worse still, where does the Governor of Enugu State come into this rabid show of native absurdity?
In one breath, Asogwa contended that the reason retired General Ike Nwachukwu was ousted from office as Chairman of the Governing Council was because the council which he headed was beholden to the Governor of Imo State, Senator Hope Uzodimma, who in turn wants to impose Professor Bond Anyaehie as VC.
According to Asogwa:
“It is a welcome development that Gen. Nwachukwu was removed as Chairman of the UNN Council. This is because it came to light that he was beholden to the Governor of Imo State, Senator Hope Uzodimma, who was hell-bent on having Professor Bond Anyaehie, sibling of his Chief of Staff, appointed the Vice Chancellor of the university.
“The common understanding within the university was that the process would have been compromised beyond acceptability, in particular given that the advert for the position and the CV template deployed had been skewed to accommodate Professor Anyaehie.”
Then, in another breath, the same author wrote:
“The effort to impose Ortuanya on the University of Nigeria is at the centre of the struggle that culminated in the removal of General Ike Nwachukwu as Chairman of the Governing Council.”
The last time I checked, the appointment of chairman of boards of tertiary institutions remains the exclusive preserve of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who also belongs to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Granted that Senator Hope Uzodimma, as a member of the APC, can recommend names for sundry appointments to Mr President, how does Governor Peter Mbah—whom Asogwa and his clients decided to drag into their agony—come into the loop, being a member of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)?
“Now, how did the Permanent Secretary come about Prof. Ujam? He is the politically exposed gadfly who wrote or signed off on all the political publications and articles in furtherance of the gubernatorial campaign of Barrister Peter Mbah, Governor of Enugu State, and since.”
So, must everybody in the University of Nigeria run away so that Asogwa and his tiny clique of clannish irredentists can have their way? This ongoing campaign against institutional harmony by outsiders does not speak well of us as a people. In other climes, patriotic citizens would be happy to have a person of their nativity mount the saddle as a leader of an academic institution.
But not for Nsukka, where the minority mentality has continued to pitch us against each other. Perhaps the Acting Vice Chancellor, Professor O. T. Ujam, had us in mind when he urged members of the University of Nigeria Senate to avoid tiny cleavages that defeat a collective approach to efficient administration.
I have a word of caution and advice for my brothers and sisters from the Nsukka clan: let us desist from imputing divisive politics into whatever we do. We have lost a lot of opportunities through these clannish segregations and social dyslexia. Instead of making enemies, let us strive to inculcate friendships to better our collective lot.
Prof. Ugwuoke writes from Edem Ani, Nsukka, Enugu State.
