Mr. Onwuasoanya FCC Jones, Onwuasoanya’s Compound, Ikpa-Okwara Akokwa, Ideato North L.G.A, Imo State. 19th January, 2014. +2348035828819. Professor Ukachukwu Awuzie, Acting Vice-Chancellor, Imo State University, Owerri. My Dear Prof. WHERE WENT THE INTEGRITY? With the best wishes for 2014 and as many more years as our good God will graciously grant you in this world, I am one of yours who is disappointed beyond words with the recent stories which is gradually bringing you down from that iconoclastic podium you have made us see you from for a very long time. I personally find it very difficult to believe that you truly are the same person we used to know and revere. You, like the proverbial palm tree has consistently fallen to the ground and the womenfolk are now climbing you. You got into public consciousness during your four years reign as the President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities. These four years are undoubtedly the best years of your life. You succeeded within these years in building an enviable reputation for yourself as a man of integrity and a stickler to the rule of law. Not a few of us regarded you as an icon of justice and fair play and a committed and incorruptible advocate of the masses, who relentlessly fights to ensure equity and fairness. These beliefs and assumptions made it possible for a greater majority of the university community to be thrown into celebration mood, immediately the news filtered in that you have been appointed as an acting Vice-Chancellor for my great alma mater. I was personally encouraged when you declared on several occasions that you were the John the Baptist of the university, explaining your determination to serve as one who would clear the way for the reinstatement of the university’s substantive Vice-Chancellor, who was unfairly deposed by the previous administration in the State. I was at Amaifeke on one occasion when you were unequivocal on the fact that you are not interested in being made a substantive Vice-Chancellor. Also at the school’s main auditorium, you re-echoed this same sentiment. You warned that nobody should do anything or say anything towards trying to help or convince you to become a substantive Vice-Chancellor. You left no one in doubt of your conviction that Professor I.C Okonkwo was unfairly treated, you mentioned that the processes leading to the ousting of Professor I.C Okonkwo was a palace coup, which must be reversed for peace and stability to return to the school. I am amazed with the sudden volte-face you have taken. Coming from your background as an immediate past President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and as the man who struggled for and signed the commendable 2009 agreement between your Union and the Federal Government of Nigeria, one had expected you to lead by example, by upholding all the articles of that agreement. It casts a horrendous mess on your reputation, when within few months of leading the whole Nigeria into a stand-off with the Federal Government in your push to ensure that the government signs and implements the provisions of that agreement, you are now the one refusing to abide by some of the most salient provisions in that document. Is it a case of hypocrisy that after insisting that the government signs an agreement which will ensure that no acting Vice-Chancellor stays beyond a non-renewable period of six months, you are now staying in that same position for fourteen months and showing no readiness to relinquish the position soonest. You had always insisted when you were still one of us that the university system should be cleansed of all form of corruption and indiscipline, but you have not been able to lead with that conviction. You have consistently convinced us that you were more interested in safeguarding your position as an acting Vice-Chancellor than implementing the beliefs you vehemently propagated, for which we admired you. It is not the character of selfless activists and those who are to be regarded as icons of integrity to consider their selfish interests before going ahead to carry out a worthwhile programme that is targeted at sanitizing an institution and ensuring a better future for our youths. Most of us are disappointed with your approach to the issue of academic corruption. You have only come hard on those you think do not have the powers to fight back. You have only rusticated students for minor examination and academic malpractices, while you have consistently parried actions on penalizing highly placed individuals who are indicted of worst incidents of corruption and even malfeasance. You have failed to clean up the admission mess in that school. While it has become extremely difficult for most of my younger siblings to be meritoriously admitted into that school, some well-to-do students are buying their ways into that same school through the aberration called ‘FACULTY ADMISSION’. Remember, the bulk ends on your table. You cannot convince us that you do not know about this racketeering, while you remain as the chief executive of that university. Your pretentious disguise as an adherent to the rule of law has come under serious scrutiny with your recent desperate actions targeted at subverting legal processes. I do not understand the rationale behind your desperation to accelerate the processes of getting yourself appointed as a substantive Vice-Chancellor, while the case instituted by Professor I.C Okonkwo, justifiably seeking for his reinstatement as the Vice-Chancellor of the university is less than one month from being determined. You have inexplicably transmuted from being Professor Okonkwo’s solicitor-in-chief to his persecutor-in-chief. I do not understand your reason for recently withdrawing the personal security details of this man whom you did tell people was your benefactor and great friend. One will not be wrong to fear for the safety of Professor I.C Okonkwo. Like a dictator on the loose, you have also withdrawn all of his entitlements as a substantive Vice-Chancellor. His recent offence against you as you have confided in those you trust, but who do not trust you is that he has refused to forego his demand to be reinstated, hence standing on your to be made a substantive Vice-Chancellor. As at this time, you have also inexplicably refused to obey an order of the Court which requested you to reinstate all the security and domestic staff of the Vice-Chancellor whom you wrongly withdrew. Even though, it is a fundamental requirement that an aspiring Vice-Chancellor must compulsorily hold a PHD, apart from being a Professor, you seem to have misled the Governing Council of the university into omitting that fundamental pre-requisite in their ill-advised advertisement for the office of the Vice-Chancellor as published in The Nation Newspaper of November 23, 2013. As an academic with so many years standing, you should not be lectured on the impossibility of one giving what he does not have. Imo State University has not held a convocation ceremony for more than a long time. Professor BEB Nwoke whom you succeeded had put everything in place towards holding a convocation ceremony, but I suspect that you put that aside due to your deficiency in academic qualification. You cannot preside over the award of PHD to some students, while you do not have the same yourself. Is this the situation you are trying to plunge the University into for some five more years? Please re-consider this ambition of yours. I do not know what you and some of your friends who have the ears of the Governor have been telling him, but I can assure you that you people have done much harm to his credential as a commander of free and qualitative education, because of the continued instability which your ambition and that of many others have plunged that university into. at times like this, men of integrity must consider the future and general good of the people more paramount than personal ambitions and interests. The students of that university at various levels are at the receiving end of this whole instability brought on by ambitions and power play. Most of the students are not sure of what the future holds for them, since a good number of them have had the courses they studying denied accreditation, while more than a half of the university’s students are confused, because their programmes of study may be denied accreditation this year, owning to the fact that most of these programmes are placed under the dicey status of INTERIM ACCREDITATION, which will expire this 2014. I beg you to redeem the little that remains of your image by doing everything legally and humanly possible to restore that university to the path of stability and progress. You cannot continue to stay beyond the period you insisted that acting Vice-Chancellors should stay and expect some of us who regarded you as an icon to still hold the same impression. I do not have any doubts about your innate abilities to perform when you are more sober and less distracted by this unusual and highly unmerited aspiration. I want to put it to you as mildly as possible that you have allowed ambition to derail your vision. You should have had no business accepting to serve beyond six months as acting Vice-Chancellor. However, it is disturbing to hear stories of how you have had to descend to the lowest ebb of integrity in order to secure an extension to your term as an acting Vice-Chancellor. It also baffles all observers how you have had to exhibit the most unthinkable desperation in your push to be made a substantive Vice-Chancellor, even though you are aware of your not being qualified to be considered for that position. How you have had to hoodwink the Governing Council into setting up a Search Team and a Selection Team with the suspicious and self-serving mandate to fast-track the appointment or confirmation of yourself as the Substantive Vice-Chancellor of the university, is a pointer to the fact that you have lost track of the history that placed you in the softest spot of our emotions. Our university, my alma mater has suffered great dilapidation of fortunes in your time as acting Vice-Chancellor, than in any other time in recent history. I am aware of the massive structures rising here and there on that campus, but you must not take one dime of credit for it. Most of these structures are being funded by Federal Government agencies and parastatals, not because you worked for it, but because it is the situation with al universities across the Federation in line with the Federal Government’s commitment to improve the fortunes of our tertiary education. Much credit must go to the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), the Education Trust Fund (ETF), the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and other agencies of the Federal Government who has taken it upon themselves to improve the outlook of my dear alma mater. But, in the case of educational development and core academic excellence which falls directly under your purview, there are more bad news than any good news. It is unfortunate that under your watch, this great citadel of excellence and an indisputable ivy league university has been ignored by several notable university education monitors in their rankings. Imo State University which used to be the undisputed first in several areas has gone down in ranking, being best to none at the moment. This makes me cry. I will not mince words in recommending that you step down from that position which has done more harm to you as a person and to the university in general. I will be sending this letter to the ASUU National Executive Committee through the ASUU IMSU, for their necessary advises, actions€ and possible sanctions. Because, your continued stay in that office as the acting Vice-Chancellor of my alma mater in contravention of ASUU’s position that you do not stay beyond six months is hypocritical to you as a person and ASUU as an organisation. This is because you are still a member of the ASUU NEC, considering your ex-officio position as an Immediate Past President (IPP) of the association. I will also be recommending to the IMSU-ASUU and other zones of ASUU to immediately withdraw the awards and recognitions they conferred you with, since after you served out your tenure as the National President of that well-regarded association. This is important because all your actions, utterances and inactions still somehow affect the image of the association. Let me assure, but not warn you that I shall be writing a formal letter to that effect to the ASUU if after twenty one days of your receipt of this letter, you are still parading yourself as the acting Vice-Chancellor of my alma mater. The Orluzurumee Youths, whom I understand had recently conferred you with some admirable plaque of honour, shall also be put on notice. The Imo State government shall get a formal copy of this letter, to better abreast them with the realities which you and your henchmen must have kept them away from. I am disappointed that Professors A.G Anwukah, USF Nnabue, Okey Okoro and C. Iwuchukwu have kept quiet and allowed this institution which ensured their meal tickets and guaranteed their growth to be crippled by lies and illegitimate administrations. As scholars who have secured the confidence of the State government, they should have risen up to the challenge of telling the Governor the truth, so that he could take necessary actions in order to rescue this re-skewed alma mater of Stars. I also expect the entire Catholic community, including your local parish to have access to this letter which shall be posted in the internet and circulated among various media platforms in the State and outside the State. However, I shall be sending a formal copy of this letter to both Arch-Bishop AJV Obinna and Bishop Augustine Ukwuoma for their possible Christian intervention and advice. I sincerely wish you well in your private practice as a frontline landscape architect, in that field my respect remains intact. I also wish you greater achievements in life, politics and other endeavours of yours. Most especially as you transit from being a father to becoming a grandfather, I wish you the best of health and a most fulfilling dream. But, being plane I must convey my negative wishes and prayers against your unfortunate aspiration to plunge my alma mater into five years of darkness. I shall not cease in prayers and all legal and positive actions to ensure that stability returns to my alma mater. May God bless you, always. An alumnus, Mr. Onwuasoanya FCC Jones.
Posted on: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 22:48:56 +0000
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