Soludo: Professors SANS Commonsense

*EXPRESSO_Umbrage>>> By Steve Osuji

Nigerian professors are giving a bad name to academia. We grew up to revere people who wear the tag ‘professor’ as very special people.
And as we went through the university, the power and aura of professors on our campuses didn’t wane. Indeed, we cherished being under their tutelage.
I encountered a few in my journey through those rarefied corridors of learning. Who would forget in a hurry, Professors Alfred Opubor, Ebun Clark, Alaba Ogunsanwo, Onuora Nwuneli, among others, at the University of Lagos in the  1980s and early 90s.
But today in Nigeria, everything seems upside down, including the university system and the professors therein.
If a professor is not being gaoled for sexually harassing his students – in a most idiotic tango – he’s being jailed for helping a rogue politician rig an election.

One cannot understand how our university system has crashed so low to the point that professors, even vice chancellors, are co-opted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) into a tacky and highly malleable electoral system.

If Nigerians pretended they didn’t know about INEC’s make-believe heist called elections, the situation in Abia State in the 2023 election must disabuse the minds of all.

Prof. Nnenna Oti, Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, was assigned to announce the Abia guber election in 2023.  As we were to find out, she saved the day in Abia by refusing to call the election in favour of the losing APC candidate. Coercion, pecuniary blandishments and threats to her life didn’t deter her. She stood her ground.

Thanks to her, the true choice of the people is reflected in Abia State today.
But we all know that for every Prof. Oti, dozens of wretched VCS get crushed in the INEC muck.

And we ask: when did professors become cheap accessories to electoral crimes? A professor of the calibre of a vice chancellor at that!

It defies common sense in the first place that in Nigeria, persons possessed of such a high intellectual state of mind can be recruited to legitimise fraudulent elections and lend credence to barefaced roguery. Imagine a professor announcing the 2023 Rivers State polls results, for instance, which we all know that a certain Nyesom Wike personally hand-wrote! Yet a so-called professor stood on the rostrum and shamelessly read such results.

Why the National Universities Commission (NUC) and the Conference of Vice Chancellors (CVC) would condone such infamy is a riddle. But now that Nigerian prisons have begun to open up gradually to our ‘bolekaja’ professors, and they are increasingly faced with disgrace, we trust there’s a cure for the malady already.

Of course, this talk about professors without commonsense has been triggered by Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo in Government House,  Anambra State.

Recall that this column, only a few days ago, called out Prof.  Soludo, noting that he acts like he is trapped under the shadows of his kinsman,  Mr. Peter Obi.
That article had been prompted by mischief-makers on social media who presented him as teaming up with Lagos Governor, Babajide Sanwoolu, to attack Obi.
The truth, however, was that they dredged up a 2022 attack by Soludo and placed it side-by-side with Sanwoolu’s current comment. So it appeared that both governors were doubling down on Obi.

But if you thought that the recent tanning of Soludo would make him back off Obi, then you never knew an unwise professor.
Last week, Soludo once again showcased his innate unwisdom when he took yet another public swipe at Peter Obi. It was on the occasion of the reception of President Bola Tinubu in Anambra.
In his welcome remarks, Governor Soludo had boasted that the last time a president visited the State was in 2012 during the era of President Goodluck Jonathan, and at that, it was an occasion to commission a brewery.

Of course that’s a backhanded swipe at Peter Obi who was governor of Anambra at the time and whose government catalysed the berthing in Onitsha of SabMiller, probably the world’s largest brewery today.

Obi was Labour Party Presidential candidate in the 2023 elections. He was President Tinubu’s major rival and justly so, remains his number one critic today. It’s tacky enough that Soludo brought Tinubu to Anambra, what point is to be scored running down Obi before Tinubu in Anambra?

No governor in the north, not to dare say Adamawa, would disparage Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Ditto for the southwest. No governor would publicly speak ill of Tinubu.

Yet, discerning Nigerians know that both Soludo and Tinubu cannot hold a candle to Peter Obi in terms of governance acumen.

Indeed, Soludo continues to display an astounding lack of commonsense not only in his unprovoked attacks on Obi but in his politics and leadership. He has suggested a stark lack of both social and political intelligence. Soludo now sounds like a certain Reno Omokri who abuses Obi for a living. We excuse Reno because like a mangy dog, he’s forever foraging every waste bin in sight, never satiated. But how do we explain Soludo picking on Obi without let?

Soludo, like Tinubu, has performed below par so far. For instance, if  free and fair elections are held today, both of them would fail woefully. That’s how badly they have fared.

In fact, it must be revealed that this very Presidential visit is in aid of political Jerry-mandering towards the 2027 polls. This explains why for the second time,  Soludo had sacrificed his own party (APGA) flagbearer, to declare support for APC’s.

In two years, Tinubu hasn’t lifted a stick by way of federal projects in Anambra State nor are there any reasonable appointments of Anambra indigenes in the federal cabinet. Yet Soludo covered Tinubu with heaps of flowery but, empty words. He  suborned his traditional rulers to confer Nwanne si Mba title on Tinubu.

On Soludo’s part, he suddenly stirred from slumber in the last six months to realise that four years is not 40 years.
For about 3 years, Nigerians watched him doodle. Having become blinded and tipsy by the frills and dazzle of high office, he didn’t know which foot to put forward. He was like fish out of water.This explains why all he has to present in three years is an amusement park and his luxurious government lodge.

The difference between Obi and Soludo are actually like hundreds of miles apart.
For instance, Soludo started borrowing from the first year and heaven knows how much he has accumulated so far in heaps of debt. Obi never borrowed a dime in eight years. Instead he cleared all previous debts yet saved over N75 billion. A feat no other governor in Nigeria has achieved so far.

Obi had eyes on HDIs, applying an integrated approach anchored on the UN  MDGs. He vastly improved the education and health systems. It’s actually a disservice to design to compare Obi with Soludo. They are classes apart.
This may explain why Obi has become Soludo’s target of hate and disparagement.

Soludo’s last outing with his tainted hero, Tinubu reminds one of grandma’s folklore about Onuku who was convinced to put down his rich kin if he wanted to be made rich and belong to the caucus in his brother’s stead.
Onuku didn’t afford himself nary one night of reflection  before he consummated the deed.

By dawn, when he knocked on the gate of the conclave they told him a choking ooze of gore seems to announce him. He needs to go wash properly at the stream, he was told … Onuku can still be seen around the village stream today trying to wash clean.
In those days of innocence, we would always watch out for proverbial Onuku each time we passed by the village stream.

There’s so, so much to be said about the needless rivalry soludo has ignited with his brother.
However, Obi in his character has maintained his usual dignified silence, refraining from responding or fighting back, hoping that commonsense would eventually prevail. But not with Soludo…
But it was Chinua Achebe who long admonished that we must  beware of the one who kept silent in the face of provocations.

Soludo is known as Mr. Know it all among his people. In fact, he has alienated all the voices of reason in his domain. People like Igwe Nnaemeka Achebe, preeminent clergymen and key Anambra elders. In Igboland, it’s said that it never augurs well for an ‘eze onye agwala m.’  He will come to ruins in no time.

Bottom line:  It’s however, the prayer of this column that Soludo doesn’t end up like Onuku of our village lores…

*Osuji is former editor at The Guardian and Thisday among other national newspapers. *Feedback: Steve.osuji@gmail.com