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Dr. C. J Iwuagwu: A Professor As An Academic Terrorist

July 21, 2010

This report is not necessarily to expose the ugly-bullying tactics of Dr. C.J Iwuagwu in terrorizing his post graduate students, but to advance an informed debate as to why post graduate program in Nigerian universities are so long, uncoordinated and amorphous to say the least. It will also provide a forum to debate on whether it is better to spend five Million Naira for graduate program abroad or waste your youthful years in Nigeria struggling to obtain sub-standard MSc.

This report is not necessarily to expose the ugly-bullying tactics of Dr. C.J Iwuagwu in terrorizing his post graduate students, but to advance an informed debate as to why post graduate program in Nigerian universities are so long, uncoordinated and amorphous to say the least. It will also provide a forum to debate on whether it is better to spend five Million Naira for graduate program abroad or waste your youthful years in Nigeria struggling to obtain sub-standard MSc.
In Nigerian academia, we have a variety of adept psychological bullies -"academic terrorist". An academic bully is someone who says and does aggressive-bullying things that under normal rules of social engagement would not be acceptable and then uses those same rules of conduct to hamstring his/her students. An academic bully will continuously manipulate the loopholes in the system to keep his students for upwards of 3 years (in some cases 5) in a masters program that should ordinarily have been completed in 18 months. While faculty may bully each other, often times post graduate students are bullied by research advisers without even knowing they are being bullied or are too scared to acknowledge it/do anything about it.

How do I know?

I was a victim in the hand of one Dr. C. J Iwuagwu – a professor of petroleum geology and current head of department of Geology at Federal University of Technology Owerri, Nigeria. Dr. Iwuawgu is a bully who hurls brutal words at his students (graduate and undergraduate) simply for his personal enjoyment, at their expense. His intent was and is still to undermine the victim's self-esteem and make them doubt their own worthiness, intelligence, and/or accomplishments. Academically, Dr. Iwuagwu has no clear plan for his postgraduate students, no class/lecture material or allocated time, no feedback to his students on ‘progress’ in the program.

A power relationship that faculty have over post graduate students makes it easy to control them overtly and covertly for several reasons. In the case of Dr. Iwuagwu, his graduate students are meant to pay/bribe him for his signatures on documents and applications. It took Dr. C.J Iwuagwu SIX good months to go through a typed manuscript of my thesis that is less than 70 pages. On several occasions, he had boosted that he will only graduate 5 students in the post graduate program in his area of petroleum geology before he retires. At my last count, about four has made it in more than his over 20 years in the academia.

In most post graduate schools in Nigeria (UI a clear exception), there is no proper coordination between the different programs, departments and the post graduate school; no strict timetable/deadline for course work scheduling and completion; no feedback loop for assessment of effectiveness or addressing of complaints.

What is even worse is that in cases where the student may have the courage to escalate his predicaments, there is no designated authority willing to take proper action to address the incivility and academic terrorism. In the case of Dr. C.J Iwuagwu, I was so terrorized when I made a complaint to the dean of the School of Science and Post Graduate School without success. When he got wind of my complaint, he boosted that “he is like a sewage waste that flows out of the toilet that nobody can touch.” He told me that if I like, I can take him to the school senate and that “nothing” will happen to him. And in fact nothing has happened to him.

That is why today he still shamelessly parades himself as the head of geology department that failed to gain full accreditation in the last NUC visit in the school. His appointment as the department head in the late 1990s and early 2000 witnessed the worst years that the locust ate in the history of the department as it regards human progress and academic improvement in whatever form.

Dr. C. J Iwuagwu is thus a typical example of a professor as an academic terrorist. But he is not alone on this; his likes are all over universities in Nigeria, from UNN to Unical, from OAU to ABU. The question thus is; why are most Nigerian professors terrorizing postgraduate students? Why can’t post graduate studies in Nigeria run smoothly as undergraduate program (at least for the MSc program) as is the case in most western countries? What will it take for the university authorities to enforce sound academic discipline in postgraduate programs in Nigeria?

The way forward

One of the first steps that all post graduate schools must adopt is a clearly defined academic calendar for their post graduate programs. There should be clear timeline for course work completion at least, not this prevailing cases where courses are irregular and undefined. Furthermore, a feedback from MSc/PhD supervisory aspect of academic life MUST be factored into faculty promotion, tenure, or post-tenure review. In western world (where most of these professors did their graduate programs) professors brag with the number of students they have graduated. Without a feedback loop, some students will encounter or be assigned to faculty members who exploit their student labor and/or fail to usher them effectively into the profession.

One other approach is to decentralize post graduate program to faculty/school levels. This way, the administration of programs will be more effective and responsive to the needs of students. While this my expository may be described as a testimony or gripes of a disgruntled student by Dr. Iwuagwu, the truth is there on the ground at Geology Department FUTO for all to see. The fact is that without recognizing that problems exist, without discussing it in a forum like this, there will be no first step toward averting them. Without a clear policy statement from post graduate schools or university authorities that reaches beyond a stated or implied ethical code of conduct, little can be done to break the silence on academic terrorism.
E-mail: [email protected]   
The writer graduated in early 2005 with MSc in Petroleum Geology after five years (full time) of psychological, emotional and financial torture under Dr. C.J Iwuagwu. He has been battling with his conscience in the past five years on whether to expose this act of academic terrorism or not.  With this piece, he hope the informed discussion it will generate can help improve on the administration of post graduate program in petroleum geology FUTO in particular and all PG  programs in Nigeria as a whole.


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