Pantami And The Ruination Of Academia

[Toyin Falola]

https://blazenewz.com/2021/09/13/pantami-and-the-ruination-of-academia/


Sent from my iPhone

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

As Dr. Alban puts it, in “Hello Africa”

“So why be shy? Why be humble?

I just came straight out the jungle”

Professors, like prophets.

“Full professors”,

half professors,

half-real professors,

semi-professors 

deputy professors 

fake professors..

Who are worse, fake professors or false prophets?

What's the difference?

What say ye about Professor Longhair?

Has Dr Pantami and the institution that honoured and recognised him, so hurt all mankind that they cannot be forgiven, understood, left in peace, ignored? 

Over here in Jante Sweden, the title professor is not such a big deal - as Baba Kadiri was joking with me over the phone yesterday, that in Sweden when some gorilla - straight outta the jungle starts beating his chest to announce “I have a PhD” (maybe the first in his tribe to be awarded a PhD), if Mister Svensson is at all interested or impressed - enough to raise an eyebrow, he may politely enquire (more in a mode of challenge) ,“ in which area of study?” And, of course, if you're from Nigeria he's probably going to be more impressed if you tell him “ molecular biology”,  than if you say, “political science.” In any case, he may even believe that it's one of those 419 degrees from this kind of university ...

The fascination with titles such as “ Professor”, especially in semi-literate societies is what colonialism has done to some of us. What is the aim of those who are so obsessed or incensed with whatever as the motor that's driving them to pursue Dr. Pantami so relentlessly? And, by the way, I'm very impressed by Dr. Pantami's tenure at Medina - I'm impressed by anyone that's qualified to teach whatever, at Medina – and when thinking of West African medical doctors destined to work in Saudi Arabia, I am also impressed by, among others, our own Dr. George Tregson Roberts, for example.

But this professor bug. My Hindu friend used to call me “ Professor”. Professor? What a responsibility! Not only being a professor of yourself but even a professor of others, having to be teaching saucy nineteen-year-old second-year urchins at some university...

On the lighter side, from mundane realities in Nigeria to the more amusing sideline truths in fiction,; I'm thinking of the role played by the Professor in Wole Soyinka's “The Road” and the Professor in Joseph Conrad's “The Secret Agent “

Listen to Pepe Kalle saying “ Professor,” as Diblo Dibala does his thing in

Pepe Kalle Chante le Poète Simaro Massiya 

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

If the professor title is no big deal, why is the person in question  interested in being so titled?

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Fine framework but how sustainable is the argument?

Pantami did not teach in the institution in which he was made prof, so the award is fraudulent, it states, if I recollect properly.

Einstein had never taught anywhere  when he published his three 1905 papers that eventually got him the Nobel Prize in physics.

 After rejecting the Fields Medal,called the Nobel of Mathematics,  like he rejected the $1m Clay Millennium Prize and the prize of the European Mathematical Society, Grigori Perelman withdrew from working in academia.

Such foundational modern Western philosophers as  Descartes ( mercenary, currency speculator), Leibniz (secretary, political appointee, ambassador) and Spinoza, a lens grinder and designer who refused honours and awards, including prestigious teaching positions, made their contributions as Independent Scholars, not academics, correlative with the later case of C.S. Pierce, the great US philosopher  and scientist who, for many years, even though he had previously held  academic job, could not get another for the rest of his life.

Paul Guyer strikingly  sums up such developments in his book on Kant:

Many of the great philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had dramatic lives.

 Descartes started his career as a soldier of fortune during the Thirty Years War, and spent much of his life in seclusion in the Netherlands out of fear that he could not work freely in France.

Spinoza suffered excommunication and exile from the Jewish community of Amsterdam because of his unconventional views. Hobbes was an intimate of the noble house of Cavendish, and spent the years of the English Civil War in fearful exile in France.

Locke trained as a physician, and it was as a physician that he first came to the attention of the powerful first Earl of Shaftesbury, with whom he became a close political associate, with the result that he was forced to spend the years of conflict over the succession to the restored Stuart kings Charles II and James II living in hiding and under an assumed name in Amsterdam, before becoming an important civil servant during the reign of William and Mary. 

Leibniz spent his life as a courtier, with a range of duties including diplomacy, engineering, and historiography. Hume took part in a number of British diplomatic and military missions before enjoying public fame and fortune as the author of his controversial but popular History of England. 

Rousseau wrote music and novels as well as philosophy while never holding a steady job and leading a disorderly personal life that got him banished from his native city as well as into many other scrapes. 

Kant, however, was the first truly important modern philosopher to spend his career almost exclusively as a university teacher, indeed as a teacher in a single university in the town of his birth. The drama in Kant’s life was intellectual, so the story of his life must be told through his works.

(Paul Guyer. Kant. Routledge: Oxon, 2006. 15)

If any universities were to award those people professorships in the fields in which they had thus excelled, even if they were not academics before such appointments, would anyone complain?

I think the more pertinent question would be-on what grounds did the institution award Pantami the professorship?

Are they recognising his cutting edge contributions to his field?

Can these contributions be pointed out and verified by anyone who so chooses?

thanks

toyin

On Mon, 13 Sept 2021 at 20:31, Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

https://blazenewz.com/2021/09/13/pantami-and-the-ruination-of-academia/


Sent from my iPhone

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju,

You wanna know, “If the professor title is no big deal, why is the person in question  interested in being so titled?”

The best person to ask is the person in question himself, assuming you will thereby wring the truth out of him. Offhand, knowing the quality of the person under your scrutiny, I'd say that the title “professor” is no big deal to him: I imagine that he's doing it for show, hence the ridiculous photos of him holding up the attestation, assuredly water-stamped and dutiful signed by the Chancellor of the university in question. Dr Pantami after all comes from the North where literacy preceded the literacy that later on came to the South, mainly through Christian missionaries. From that point of view, I suppose that for Dr. Pantami, the title Mallam is more elevating, confers more status, than Professor or D.D.. With which of his South Nigerian contemporaries of the Nigerian East or West would you compare the prodigious intellectual output of Shehu Usman dan Fodio, which is still in print and some of which I have devoured?

It's a peculiarly Nigerian phenomena, this fascination with the title of Professor. Understandably, in pre-literate, illiterate, semi-literate and indeed in primitive (pre-technological) societies, he who knows little is king, talk less of he who knows much. In the kingdom of the blind, is the one-eyed not king? So, understandably, some people of otherwise low-self esteem ( inferiority complex, the backside of superiority complex ) want to be beheld in the eyes of their mental and intellectual superiors /equals/menial inferiors, so-called underlings, as intellectual giants “kings”, as their intellectual “kings”, “professors” of even the lowest-ranked universities in the world, even if they've only got a PhD in geology or mineral extraction.

The erstwhile chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission Attahiru Muhammadu Jega always appeared in the news as “ Professor Attahiru Jega”, I suppose for added lustre, to give his honesty, incorrigibility, added credibility, if not awe.

We talk of Soyinka, Chomsky, Georg Henrik Von Wright, ritually, without prefacing their names with the title “Professor”

How does Dr Pantami want to be addressed in the future? As Professor Pantami or would he prefer to keep the title in his back pocket?

The best answer to that question too can only come directly from the horse's mouth.

Still in the realm of Professor, this article for your perusal even if as of yet here is no left in Nigerian politickings: Cornel West on Why the Left Needs Jesus

Virus-free. www.avast.com

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

As a youth corper  at the University of Benin, I used to aspire to the title of ''professor''. I even composed my professorial titles and the names of the universities in different parts of Africa where they would be held and pasted these on a part of my room where I would see them daily.

No studying in the West for me, I resolved. I was determined to contributing to breaking Western epistemic hegemony by achieving  maximum success without the benefit of studying within their citadels. 

I was so happy to be a lecturer. Anything was possible, I thought. 

''Get a degree and the world becomes yours for the choosing'' my mum would urge in those years when I had resisted going to the university, preferring to educate myself. 

''Which is preferable, the [ then rustic looking ] white garment church priest or the refined Catholic priest? Which would you wish to be?," she would urge, equating the white garment  priest with my self education path and the Catholic priest with the university graduate. 

''You oppose the educational system as misguided and therefore have chosen to drop out. Are you not like a person trying to put off a light bulb using his breath, rather than simply flicking the switch for that purpose? You cannot change the system from outside. You must belong within it to do so" she would conclude, she being a primary and secondary school teacher and eventually a lawyer, having  got two degrees in different disciplines, even after giving birth to all her children. 

''What others do all kinds of bizarre things to achieve, you have achieved and discarded?!" my father would respond incredulously to my unilaterally  dropping out of  uni in my first year after eventually entering the university following the pressure from my family and the various people assembled to convince me to enter.

Having been one of the earlier elite attending such schools as the then University of Ife,  his alma mater, when they were still new, my father, an accountant with various professional qualifications,  could not understand why his son could not grasp the socio-economic implications of the world opened up for a Nigerian by a university education at a time when such education and middle class status were automatically  correlative.

He could not understand that his son had entered  into another world, though still active in the conventional social universe. 

Other teengaers were focused on girls, school, parties, cars, friends, music, etc. All that had little value for me.

Reading the books my father had bought for the family library had transformed me. I wanted to be like the Buddha, seeker of the ultimate meaning of existence, who had abandoned everything for that quest, and about whom I had first read  in Charles Connell's World Famous Rebels, one of those books in the family library.

Looking within myself in meditation, following the inspiration of Abdrushin's In the Light of Truth, another of those books, I had discovered within myself a raging fire, a desperate  hunger for knowledge, like a voracious lion.

Nothing being offered by society could satisfy that quest for knowledge of ultimate reality unifying all existence, the focus of this force, which took over my being.

''The mass education of that system does not suit me'', I would insist. 

''An education that is not centred in  exploring the questions of why we exist, where we are coming from, where we are going to and how we should live, is a focus on illusion, the distraction of lost travellers who have no idea of the purpose of their journey,'' I would argue.

''Sounded intelligent but meaningless" my younger sister later told me was how she saw those protestations from me in those teenage  years.

In retrospect, I wonder how my efforts at expressing those aspirations would have sounded at the time, having had little formal education beyond secondary school and just beginning to enter into sophisticated reading and with little practice in crafting and communicating  philosophical ideas.  Ironically, whatever lucidity those ideas  now demonstrate has taken me decades of tertiary schooling, academic scholarship and self directed  study to achieve.

'' Is he being troubled by a love affair? Is he smoking or ingesting dangerous substances? Does he use intoxicants?'' various adults would ask at that time of my rebellion.

''No. He's actually an introvert who spends all his time reading''  my beleaguered mother would respond.

'' You need to take him to a psychiatrist. There must be something wrong''  some concluded.

All that was demanded of us we have done. The schooling we have done. Working as an academic, one has done. Even further studies in the heartland of the educational system, the West, after unfulfillment with the Nigerian variant, one has been fortunate to experience with the help of my mum and sisters, anxious to assist in fulfilling himself and finding his bearings  their intelligent brother who has not been able to fit in fully anywhere.

But one cannot deny one's own spirit.

How shall the wilderness fit in the city? 

thanks

toyin

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[Toyin Falola]

Good Lord!

You have below the stuff of an excellent memoir.

TF

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[Okey Iheduru]

Yes, Toyin. Please do write that memoir! 

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[Nimi Wariboko]

Toyin Adepoju, this is an interesting story.  Thanks for sharing.

Nimi Wariboko 

On Sep 14, 2021, at 8:55 PM, Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:



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[Toyin Falola]

Great Nimi:

 

I have been thinking about you for three days for the wrong reasons! As I read Farooq’s piece on Pantami and later one written by Moses (via Farooq sending it to me as I am not on Facebook), I began to think of you that assuming you did not do your PhD (in two years if I remember), would I not have recommended you to become a professor? I would have. Could this have been a “fraud”? No.

 

There are too many things about the Pantami’s case that trouble me. There are talents out there who could be professors without any form of corruption. You already had a solid body of work before you decided to do a PhD. Behind your back, I had nominated you twice for an honorary doctorate. On one occasion, they decided to choose Patience Jonathan instead!

 

I decided to think about myself as well. I did not want to go to College, talk less about becoming a professor. I don’t like to be called a professor. My favorite name/title is TF. It takes away all needs for titles, status. When people call me Professor, I tell them without being rude not to call me a professor.

 

Why does Pantami want to be called a Professor? He already has tremendous power, both in secular and theological terms. He has even acquired the power of a Non-Governmental Individual (NGI) for the rest of his life. In Weberian terms, he is power. Why not become a Chancellor? And Farooq will not have a point to make. I don’t see the entire incident as a “fraud”, with an apology to Farooq, but as an excess of oxytocin that produces excessive flights of imagination.

In these flights of imagination, I have heard about women who want to become witches, pastors who see themselves as Jesus Christ and enter the lion’s den thinking that nothing will happen to them, professors who see themselves as winning the Nobel, a small store owner who thinks he is Dangote, a lizard who actually thinks that he is a crocodile.

 

Where Farooq sees “fraud” I see a variety of madness. There are four types: bad-mad, mad-mad, sad-mad, and glad-mad. May be this case illustrates a case of one.

 

I welcome your thoughts!

TF

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[Pamela Smith]

Dear Toyin Adepoju:

Confessedly, I stopped reading any and all of your exchanges on this site mainly because of my own impatience with and lack of understanding of convoluted arguments and exchanges that do not appear too keen on resolutions. But, strangely, this piece pulled me in for its honest and direct “As a youth corper...” promise of a story of INTROSPECTION! But you stopped far too soon!! There is much much more of value where this excerpt came from, and, as one who loves “good stories” and can “smell/sniff” them out from their cellars, I want to urge you to tell/write this story in full, fleshing out the “...and then...” what of its structure.  I promise you, you have one eager reader in me, waiting to “meet Toyin Adepoju, the ???”

Cheers,

Pam Smith

 

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Oluwatoyin Adepoju
Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2021 5:43 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Pantami And The Ruination Of Academia

 

Non-NU Email

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Great thanks Pamela.

We thank God.

It's actually a  painful but increasingly triumphant story,  it seems, which I'm still trying to understand.

Painful because of the efforts to fit a round object into a square whole.

Triumphant because of the eventual realisation of the inadequacy of the effort.

The Independent Scholar whose primary means of publication is social media is part of the story.

I hope to do more of such writing with time.

Thanks

Toyin

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Thanks Prof Falola

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Great thanks, Okey.

USAAfrica Dialogues is helping me take stock of my journey.

Who knows, these reflections could coalesce into something more definitive, partly shaped by reading about the cognitive and  life journeys of other scholars.

Thanks

Toyin

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Great thanks Nimi.

The journey continues.

Toyin

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[Nimi Wariboko]

Dear Professor Falola:

Let me quickly respond to you. I am going to school now, but when I have the chance I will respond fully, to the broader issues you have raised. For now, I want to flesh out what you have said about my biography. 

Yes, you are right I did my PhD in two years (with a distinction and perfect score) and became a full professor with an endowed chair also in two years. So before my doctoral classmates could defend their dissertations I had become a full professor with an endowed chair. I attended their graduation ceremonies as a full professor. 

But my story or path to professorship is is unusual. Before starting the PhD I had a solid body of work, five books and 18 essays and book chapters. I had presented at many academic conferences. My works were being used even at the doctoral seminars in many universities. For instance, Garett Austin at LSE and Cambridge was teaching my work on African history in his doctoral seminars. Some universities, business schools were using my books  on finance, accounting, and management. It was Professor David Henige who read my manuscript on economic history and connected both of us in 1995 or 1996, when I was an investment banker on Wall Street. 

New York University invited me to teach a course on African studies as an adjunct lecturer, though I did not have a PhD and I was an investment banker on Wall Street. I was invited because some professors there had read my publications and felt they qualified me to teach at a university. NYU within a year of employing me set up a committee to review my publications. The committee came up with the recommendation that I should be promoted to Assistant Professor (Adjunct) of Social Sciences. Why Social Sciences? They looked at the multidisciplinary nature of my scholarship and publications and decided that I should not be pidgin-holed. I was not aware at the time if anyone was given title like that.  

New York Institute of Finance and Hofstra University also invited me to teach courses in finance and international marketing. Yes, I was teaching in several universities at the same time. I was also working as an investment banker or a pastor of one of RCCG churches in NYC. 

During this time many of the scholars I met at the universities and conferences would address me as Dr. or Professor Wariboko. I would correct them, but they would not listen. So I decided to get a PhD, so I would feel comfortable responding to them, to my name when I was called. 

I became a professor in two years because my school then evaluated my body of work, my years of teaching as an adjunct and as a full time staff, and services to my institution, the academy,  and my community. My publications were sent out to external reviewers and they came back with a solid recommendation for promotion to the rank of full professor. 

For clarity, when I was hired as a teacher after my doctoral degree I was started as an associate professor. I stayed only 22 months in this position. (By the time I left Hosfra University, the process had begun to evaluate my work and promote me to adjunct associate professor of business. So it was no surprise that another university would hire me straight as an associate professor after completing my doctoral program) 

Within  two years of being an associate professor—now in ethics— I produced four books and multiple articles. And the “ethics faculty” of Boston Theological Institute, which included Boston University, Harvard, Boston College, and six other universities in the Boston area voted me to be the chair of their Ethics Colloquium.  All these combined to nudge my institution to promote me to full professor with an endowed chair. 

Actually, I was immediately placed on an endowed chair in economic ethics when I was hired as an associate professor. As a fresh PhD I was given a chair. This was at Andover Newton Theological School, America’s oldest graduate seminary. The Puritans created Harvard and Andover. Till today, the divinity school building at Harvard is called Andover Hall. In 2016 Andover Newton Theological School merged with Yale after centuries of being in Massachusetts.

Sir, Pantami’s path does not exactly fit with mine. He is a superstar. I am an ordinary scholar who puts on his trousers one leg at a time. 

Thanks,

Nimi 

On Sep 15, 2021, at 7:11 AM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

On reading Wariboko's story what is one to do?

For me, it inspires speechlessness.

Thanks

Toyin

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Speechlessness at human creativity.

Thanks

Toyin

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Nimi,

Thanks for telling us the story of your rapid elevation into the commanding heights of academia, and more importantly for demonstrating that it is starkly different from the trajectory of Dr. Pantami. Nothing happened by accident or influence in your case. You worked hard to build a compelling oeuvre, which was then rightly recognized to accord you the status you earned. You did not cut corners. You were not a person in/of power who parlayed that power to secure your professorship and endowed chair. You were consistently engaged in academia even while working on wall street.

There are similar situations even today, the one that readily comes to mind being Ibram Kendi, who was promoted from Assistant Professor to full with an endowed chair when he moved first to American University, following the roaring success of his book, Stamped from the Beginning, which won the national book award.

You were rigorously evaluated, so was Kendi and other similarly talented people. Your body of work spoke for you.

There is absolutely no basis for comparison with Pantami's situation.

Pantami, as many have pointed out, has little to no body of work to point to, and his google scholar presence is dominated by speeches he gave as minister or NITDA DG. His publication record is embarrassingly thin, if not non-existent.

This is why I've been perplexed by TF's hesitation to call the spade of fraud a spade, by his erection of false equivalence between a clearly fraudulent case of political professorship and those of people who legitimately earned their professorships or were invited from industry (not active politics) to contribute their talent in academia, and by his building of a strawman by implying that Pantami's critics are arguing against the employment of people from outside the university into adjunct, visiting, and practice positions, or even rewarding retired or serving professionals with permanent professorial positions in order to tap their expertise and knowledge. No one to my knowledge has argued against the wisdom of strategically doing this, so to keep invoking and then attacking this imagined position is, with all due respect, strawman argumentation on TF's part.

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[Toyin Falola]

Moses:

You are misreading me by not reading the subtext:

1. Signaling to the public the evil of corruption in practices that are legitimate.
2. I am provoking Owerri and those who have a hand in it to release the man’s CV. I want to assume that the CV may have stuff there that may not be academic.  
3. And I am saying that if things are true, this is not a case of fraud but of serious mental illness.

TF

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[Moses Ochonu]

Ok, Oga TF. I got your drift. I just hope that this does not morph into an exculpatory insanity plea for Pantami 😂 

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 15, 2021, at 12:58 PM, Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:



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[Toyin Falola]

Idi Amin, Hitler, etc. were originally misread.

Accusing a person like Trump of fraud is minimizing the issue. I am actually ahead of Farooq and his focus on fraud. One day, guys who can do this sort of thing will wipe away an entire state in the union.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/D17098C9-3A34-4156-A1E0-2BBAC68C261C%40gmail.com.

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

To be forgiven: Sins we have committed against our fellow man, all that backbiting and Pee-HD (pull him down stuff) which can only be forgiven by our fellow man or otherwise remains unforgiven, and the sins committed against the Almighty, which only the Almighty can forgive.

This evening it's Kol Nidre, tomorrow it's Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, ten days after the beginning of the new year, the day of atonement when the judgment is sealed, as to who shall live and who shall die.

That's a very strong word in the theme title: “ruination” . Very serious, They don't come a dime a dozen.

As we all know, there are professors and there are professors! All professors are not equal. Some professors are more equal than others. It would seem that what the rigmarole is all about is that the bona fide professors of reputable institutions want to protect their own reputations and their own turf. The status quo is feeling peeved, they don't want professorships to be awarded ad hoc to just any omolanke pusher or so-called scholar who has not paid his dues; professorships are not supposed to come easy, like the honorary degrees you give to political appointees, professorships are supposed to be earned by years of tedious study & research, real sacrifice, blood, sweat, and in some cases tears, and mostly deserved by hard-working geniuses like Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, they are not supposed to be awarded like the degrees that you hang on your Christmas tree ( next to the star of Bethlehem, as part of the Xmas decorations) . To award professorships to those who don't deserve to be called professor, would sully the very title professor - in fact it would be an insult to have Nigerian professors as that special category of dubious quality, thereby giving all Nigerian professors a bad name.

In my not so humble opinion, Professor Toyin Falola ( real professor, full professor, prolific professor, respected professor) has given us the best, all-round summation of the Pantami situation, (almost made that Freudian slip there, writing “pandemic” instead of Pantami, very similar enemies nevertheless, Pantami's wanting to cut him down to size, to diminish him, some of the most envious ones ( fake, false, fair-weather friends) in their secret heart of hearts actually wanting to annihilate him – the worst kind of hatred being, “ I don't want to see you here”, as if Pantami would be less without a PhD decoration from Owerri, instead of from Harrow's M.I.T. - and in the case of the virus, apart from those harbouring conspiracy theories in their heads, and those fully ( like full professors) or half ( like half professors) vaccinated against the ravages ( almost wrote savages) of the pandemic, robbing them of full immortality.

As Benjamin Franklin out it, “ He that falls in love with himself, will have no rivals “

Here's one not so grotesque example

In my humble opinion/ judgment, Lord Agbetuyi has the last word in this thread , but not in China...

Future jobs in Sweden

[Toyin Falola]

Great elder:

I plead that you don’t trivialize this Pantami’s case. It has serious implications on our nation as a collective. Any minister or member of the National Assembly can now walk to a University to be made a professor.

Yes, I know professors who are not worthy of the title, but a serving minister must not be allowed to use his power to seek a professorship for himself.

I am sure Pantami would be surprised that if I were to see his CV and take it to IT folks (which I intend to do if could obtain the CV) and they say he deserves to be made a professor, I will be the very first to call Farooq to order. I will defend him.

Farooq is actually one of the best examples I know of who you can tell that he is wrong and he will admit to it. His muscular writing is at variance with his feminine personality.

TF

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/47458201-439d-488e-b098-6e622d5180f4n%40googlegroups.com.

[segun ogungbemi]

Gentlemen/Colleagues,

Is Pantami to blame for the professorial title given to him by the Management and Governing Council of Federal University of Technology (FUTO) Owerri?

Of course, he has a moral right to reject it knowing fully well that he didn't merit it. That said, he may have a good argument that there were others from another Federal university in Enugu State that liberally appointed some individuals as professors just like him, so why did he have to reject such a generous offer?

If a country is a failed state like Nigeria, has the university system not contributed to it? The wroughts in the university system in Nigeria will gradually destroy the worth of its values.

It is very unlikely that Dr. Pantami will redeem his image by honorably and politely giving a good reason to return the offer  of his professorship to FUTO. Normally, a man of integrity will not hesitate to so having realized his mistake for accepting it.

The university system in Nigeria needs a complete overhauling but who will do it? Can our colleagues in the diaspora do it? I doubt it because they are no longer 'fellow Nigerians'. We cannot help them because most of the elites enjoy the wroughts in the university system.

Segun Ogungbemi.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGBtzfO1ZWTrY%3D6Un1pY1goJdx_tCZiM9Nx_n1ffBM3wpbBhMA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Toyin Falola]

Sir:

It is not an honorary professorship. It is not a question of accepting or rejecting. Dr. Pantami must have submitted an application to be considered for an appointment. This application, plus the CV, must be made public. Owerri must make a public statement on the procedure, evaluation process, etc.

If we see his CV, and we see the publications, and Owerri tells us about the evaluation letters, I will be the first to ask Professor Kperogi to write a public apology. From what I know of his character, he will apologize.

TF

 

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of segun ogungbemi <segun...@gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 5:19 PM
To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Pantami And The Ruination Of Academia

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAB0J%2BvpPZTZqJkqyXnRJn2_1R_7RuJ6j3EqHX9Re%3D3GK5JDMMg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Salimonu Kadiri]

​The Santa Claus gift of professorship to Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami by the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, cannot, in any sense, constitute the ruination of academic world but in Nigeria. Even as at that, the ruination of academy in Nigeria began some decades ago and it must, therefore, be exceedingly dishonest for anyone to scapegoat Pantami when application of real knowledge is nowhere in display by the intellectuals in various spheres of governance in Nigeria as of date.

Let us recall that the Federal Military Government under Major General Yakubu Gowon promulgated a Decree establishing, as a statutory body, the Nigerian Council for Science and Technology on February 3, 1970. Supplement to the Official Gazette, No. 6, Vol. 57, of February 5 , 1970, outlined the objectives, functions and composition of the Council.

Among the objectives were, (a) to determine priorities for scientific activities in the Federation in relation to the economic and social policies of the country and its international commitments, (b) ....., (c) To ensure the application of the results of scientific activities to the development of agriculture, industry and social welfare in the Federation, (d) to ensure co-operation and co-ordination between the various agencies involved in the machinery for making the national science policy, and (e) ..... 

The functions of the Council shall be - (a) to consider and advise generally on all scientific activities including (i) the application of the results of research, (ii) the transfer of technology into agriculture and industry, .... etc. The Decree stipulated that the Council would consist of 11 Federal Permanent Secretaries of (a) Agriculture and Natural Resources, (b) Communications, (c) Economic Development, (d) Education, (e) Finance, (f) Health (g) Industries (h) Mines and Power, (i) Trade, (j) Transport and Aviation, and (k) Works and Housing. Each of the then 12 States had a representation in the Council while the fields of scientific knowledge had 12 representatives in the Council in the following categories (a) agricultural Sciences, (b) Experimental Sciences (physical and chemical sciences, and mathematics), (c) Industrial Sciences, Engineering and Technology, (d) Medical s Sciences, (e) Environmental Sciences (biosciences and geosciences), and Social Sciences.

When, on Friday, 10 April 1970, General Yakubu Gowon inaugurated the 35 members of the Nigerian Council for Science and Technology, the least qualified member of the 35 members was a BSc holder, while the rest were titled either as Professors or PhDs. Addressing members of the Council, Gowon expressed the hope that the establishment of the Council "will symbolize the beginning of a great future for the development of science and technology and their application to the constructive exploitation and utilization of our national resources." Further, he said, "I am glad to note that the establishment of this Council has been acclaimed by all who appreciate the important role which science and technology can play in the promotion of the political, economic and social welfare of the people of this country. NIGERIA IS ENDOWED WITH IMMENSE NATURAL RESOURCES, WHICH, IF PROPERLY DEVELOPED THROUGH THE APPLICATION OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, WOULD ENSURE FOR THE PRESENT AND FUTURE GENERATIONS A BRIGHT ECONOMIC FUTURE." That was 51 years ago and matching words with actions, Gowon saw to it that one per cent of the GDP, equivalent to £20 million then was allocated to the Nigerian Council for Science and Technology consisting of overeducated Nigerians. Noteworthy is that a Nigerian £ (pound) in Gowon's time exchanged at $1.49 and the same was equal to a British pound sterling. Nobody would say that the Nigerian academics have not been given the opportunity to display their expertise in Nigeria. As if they are all fake university graduates, Nigerian academics have turned Nigeria into backward ever and forward never as we all can witness today.

If Pantami's professorship is fake (is not genuine) and is a fraud (is a cheat intended to gain monetary or material advantages) as Hammed Tajudeen and Farooq Kperogi would want us to believe, the questions that one should ask for instances are, how genuine are the academic qualifications of personnel at Nigeria's oil Ministry and its oil refineries who are incapable of refining crude oil but are fraudulently collecting salaries and allowances, year in year out? How genuine and non-fraudulent are the academic papers of the personnel at the power sector who constantly produce one day electric light and four months darkness for Nigerians even when they collect full salaries and allowances every month? If the academic qualifications of Nigerians in Nigeria's Ministries, Departments and Agencies are not fake and fraudulent, should results of their scientific researches not have been applied to the development of agriculture, industry and social welfare in Nigeria as contemplated in 1970? Why has Nigeria failed to be paradise on earth as envisaged by Gowon in 1970?

When industrial revolution began in Europe and the US, they did not have one-tenth of the university degree graduates as Nigeria of today. They depended on their colonies, and still today depend on their former colonies, for supplies of raw materials to feed their industries and create better living conditions for the masses of their people. As of today, over 90% of Europeans and Americans are not University Graduates but the few knowledgeable among them have been able to use their knowledge to improve the standard of living of their fellow citizens. Indeed, if one considers the abundance of Nigeria's human and material resources, energy of Nigerians as a people, and Nigeria's seeming exemption from terrible natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, typhoons and drought that afflict so many countries and then look at the level of Nigeria's industrial and economic development today, one is bound to conclude that Nigeria's MDAs are peopled by fake and fraudulent academic degree holders. Thus, even if, as professor Toyin Falola requested, Federal University of Technology, Owerri should make public Pantami's authentic CV that qualified him to be named a professor, his professorship will still remain decorative and of no useful value to Nigerians. During President Jonathan's tenure, Nigeria had two authentic Professors of Electrical Engineering as Minister of Power who produced and generated mostly darkness for Nigerians. That is my own definition of fake and fraudulent academic titles.

S. Kadiri        

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Sent: 13 September 2021 21:25
To: dialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Pantami And The Ruination Of Academia

 

https://blazenewz.com/2021/09/13/pantami-and-the-ruination-of-academia/


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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

When Nigeria's 61^st Independence Anniversary is celebrated on 1^st of October 2021, normally, every Pan-African and every Nigerian patriot would be full of anticipation like a full Nigerian such as Baba Kadiri, but sadly Baba Kadiri is feeling distressed about the lack of progress made so far by the Nigerian Council for Science and Technology which he says was decreed into existence by Major General Yakubu Gowon on February 3, 1970. One wonders if the said council is still in existence or has been disbanded or been renamed, in the intervening years, just as after Nigeria's Independence, the old Colonial Office headquartered in London was appropriately renamed “ The Ministry of Overseas Development” to continue to keep a benign eye on Nigeria, and is now “The Department for International Development”. With all the talk of corruption everywhere on the planet, it's no surprise that the no-nonsense Taliban are recalibrating and have now renamed their Ministry of Women's Affairs: “Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice “

It's an identical motto at work right now, “the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice”, in the ongoing case of Full Professor Pantami. And, as if there is no longer the principle by which a man is “presumed innocent – unless or until proven guilty” everybody – almost everybody is jumping on Brother Pantami, they say they are on a moral crusade. The condemnations are many, they come, fast and furious, the moral outrage and the indignation is heavy; some of the more cautious are calling for a full investigation by a neutral body – such as “ Premium Time”. Investigated by a newspaper. What Judge Clarence Thomas could call “a hi-tech lynching”. Why Premium Times should be presumed to be impartial is beyond me. Pray, Professor Falola, what's so impartial about Premium Times?

Indeed, if there was a death penalty for the alleged crime then in the minds of some of the crusaders, the death sentence would have been a foregone conclusion. Despite pleas for mercy the newspapermen would have already written the obituary in advance of the rigor mortis setting in, as tearful friends compose their eulogies, shedding real tears, some of Pantami's erstwhile persecutors shedding crocodile tears, a denouement based on false premises.

The questions are, how come Pantami was not appointed Professor by any other University in Nigeria? What's so special about the one at Owerri?

Free: Say you will

Was Pantami chasing Owerri or was Owerri chasing Pantami?

Is there a causal connection between Pantami being appointed Professor of Cyber Security by the Governing Council of Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO) at its 186th meeting held on Friday, August 20, 2021... and President Buhari arriving in Owerri a few days later on the 9^th of September and being so warmly received?

My hunch is that Owerri's largesse towards Buhari's prince, Pantami, was to soften Buhari up, a kind of currying favour, a way of saying welcome Brother Buhari, no hard feelings, we love you Sah, see we have even appointed your Pantami as one of our Professors, Full Professor. And Brother Buhari said many very nice things in Owerri

Another nice homily here: Elder Porphyrios on “the moralist” - That Which is Bread

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