Our attention has been drawn to the two articles that Onche Odeh published in the Education department of the Daily Independent of 15/1/14 on pages 41 and 42 and we would like to correct the misinformation they contained. The Nigerian public should be given the correct information about the prevailing sad situation in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), because the institution belongs to them. I itemize and comment on each of the major wrong pieces of information in the articles under reference.
Our attention has been drawn to the two articles that Onche Odeh published in the Education department of the Daily Independent of 15/1/14 on pages 41 and 42 and we would like to correct the misinformation they contained. The Nigerian public should be given the correct information about the prevailing sad situation in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), because the institution belongs to them. I itemize and comment on each of the major wrong pieces of information in the articles under reference.
1. WRONG: The troubles in the UNN are hinged on sectional interests of the Nsukka host community.
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RIGHT: The present problem in UNN has nothing whatsoever to do with Nsukka as a community. There is no so-called ethnic dimension to this problem. The immediate cause of the agitation by workers is the precipitate removal of Dr. Emeka Enejere as the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Governing Council of the UNN by the supervising Minister of Education, Chief Nyesom Wike, without giving any reason for the action. D. Enejere comes from the Nsukka area of Enugu State but the reason why workers in the UNN are protesting is not because someone from the Nsukka area is removed but because the removal flies in the face of due process, and by extension encourages impunity.
Dr. Enjere’s Council found that the UNN administration of Professor Bartho Okolo has been awarding contracts in manners that fragrantly violate the rules relating to his office as Vice Chancellor. In workers’ welfare and other aspects of University life, Professor Okolo also carries on as he pleases, and not in line with what the rules say. These violations are so numerous. Before Dr. Enejere came to the UNN, all the four workers’ unions in the University acting together under the Joint Action Committee (JAC) had held a press conference and catalogued them. In many forums ever since, including the media, we have continued to re-enumerate these questionable actions. Public funds that Professor Okolo as the VC of UNN has not been able to account for are put at 3 billion Naira. In one instance, a building which a state governor had donated to the Department of Sociology & Anthropology of UNN at no cost at all to the University was added by Professor Okolo to what he said he had built, and he claimed that it cost his administration 55 million Naira. There are three short streets which he claimed that he awarded contracts for their construction at a cost close to 100 million naira. Till date there has been no construction of those streets, and yet he had paid more than about 90 percent of the contract sums.
The previous Pro-Chancellor, Professor S.O. Igwe, was too pliant to ask Professor Okolo questions. It was Dr. Enejere who did the right thing by raising the alarm on perceived misuse of public funds by the VC. The reporter was right when he said that the function of a Pro-Chancellor was that of oversight of University affairs. Now, if what Dr. Enejere did by reporting these excesses of Professor Okolo is not part of oversight, please what then is?
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Dr. Enejere is popular with workers of the UNN because he is on the side of probity and due process. Professor Okolo is unpopular with workers of the UNN because he is on the side of autocracy and impunity. The problem therefore is probity versus impunity; not Nsukka people versus non-Nsukka people.
The summary of workers’ demands is: recall Dr. Enejere. Suspend Professor Okolo. Appoint a Commission of Inquiry to investigate Professor Okolo’s tenure as the VC of UNN. If he is innocent, so be it; if he is not then visit him with commensurate sanctions.
2. WRONG: Impact Factor (IF) is the hallmark of peer-reviewed journals complying with “global best practice”.
RIGHT: We only refer to this complex subject because the reporter mentioned it in one of the articles under reference. The Academic Staff Union of the Universities, UNN Branch (ASUU-UNN) commissioned a study on this vexed subject and adopted the findings of the Committee which has several professors among them. The reporter was wrong in presenting IF as the touchstone of quality academic articles. Some of our members have published independently in respectable national press to enlighten the Nigerian public on this. IF is not about quality of articles. It is not about peer-review of articles. It is not even about quality of journals. IF has a complex history that has to do with college librarians in America looking for a way to economise the scarce fund. The method for calculating IF is too unreliable and fraught with unscientific manipulations. Researchers outside Nigeria have proved this many times in the past. It is for these reasons of unsuitability and unreliability for assessment of quality of journal articles that some of the best names in the world of science and publishing met in the United States on 16 December 2012 and issued what is now known as the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) expressly banning IF from being used in hiring academics, scientists and researchers, or promoting them, or making decisions on research funding. Two hundred and thirty-three world-class scientists and academic publishers originally signed DORA. None was from Nigeria or even Africa south of the Sahara.
DORA actually was just the climax of similar decisions that had been taken in Germany, United Kingdom, United States, and so on. Some countries simply never used IF at all. So, you can see that it is actually the use of IF for promotion of academics that violates global best practices, and not its rejection.
Professor Okolo invoked IF simply because it served his anti-worker-welfare purposes; not because IF serves any useful purpose with regard to quality knowledge production.
3. WRONG: Dr. Ifeanyichukwu Abada was removed as the Chairman ASUU-UNN.
RIGHT: That this is false is self-evident. It can be cross-checked with any bona fide member of ASUU-UNN that Dr. Ifeanyichukwu Abada is still the Chairman of the Branch. Only one officer of the Branch has ever been suspended since the recall Enejere agitation began. The person is Dr. Aaron Agbo, the former Secretary of the Branch. He was suspended because of alleged anti-Union activities which a Committee headed by an ASUU member of Professorial rank are investigating. The Daily Independent reporter published his article alleging that Dr. Abada was suspended as Chairman on 15/1/14. Dr. Abada presided over a Congress of the Branch on 16/1/14. That Congress was also attended by the ASUU Zonal Coordinator, Dr. Chidi Osuagwu of Abia State University, and was one of the Congresses with the largest attendance in the history of the Branch. In that Congress a vote of confidence was passed on the ASUU-UNN Chairmanship of Dr. Ifeanyichukwu Abada.
4. WRONG: Dr. Ifeanyichukwu Abada, Chairman of ASUU-UNN, is the maternal nephew of Dr. Enejere.
RIGHT: It is amazing that this blatant lie should continue even when I have made public statements refuting it after it first appeared in an advertorial that was published by an agent of the VC. I am Dr. Ifeanyichukwu Abada and I am not related to Dr. Enejere in any form, by blood or by marriage, or in any other way. I am only doing my humble best to stay on the side of the truth and public interest in these difficult times in the life of the UNN when I have the onerous task of leading this Branch of the great Union of academics.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of SaharaReporters
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