WORKSHOP FOR SPOUSES OF VCs.pdf

[Toyin Falola]

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[Toyin Falola]

It is true!!

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On May 4, 2022, at 12:05 PM, Femi Osofisan <okinba...@yahoo.com> wrote:

Iwin, 

What's all this about? Must be some joke, an expensive joke. Someone is hungry...

FO 

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On Wed, 4 May 2022 at 17:12, Toyin Falola

<toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

Dear all:

Do please see the two attachments regarding the Association of the Wives of Vice-Chancellors. I need to confirm that this is not a joke before I respond.

Thank you.

[Gbolahan Gbadamosi]

When is this going to stop? Someone says it is the Gown mimicking the Town. How do you keep a straight face as an academic when confronted with this? Feeling scandalised does not begin to capture the feelings.

Oba rere ma gba was ke.

GG

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[Okey Iheduru]

Nigeria is a land where if you don't have titles and/or belong to groups that can access state funds and/or political office holders who can dip their hands into the public till, you suffer a great deal of relative deprivation.

And so, why not VCs wives? After all, there are:

NAOWA -- Nigerian Army Officers' Wives Association;

NNOWA -- Nigerian Navy Officers' Wives Association;

POWA -- Police Officers' Wives Association;

DEPOWA -- Defence and Police Officers' Wives Association; 

Paramilitary officers' Wives Association, etc.

There are also associations of wives of local government chairmen, wives of Presidents-General, wives of mechanics, herbalists, etc. 

Although these are largely epicurean and ego-tripping outfits (and the fights these women engage in can be really nasty!), some of them can be a force for good--sometimes. For example, NAOWA runs some relatively good schools in Abuja for military (and sometimes civilian) families who can't afford the outrageously expensive private schools in the city that aspire to be more American and more British in their curriculum and subcultures than schools in these two countries. 

 

The other weird part of the post is the leadership training program that is planned to take place in Istanbul, which I suppose is the city in Turkey! Accra has since lost out to Dubai as the place to be, and now Dubai seems to be losing out to Istanbul because they (UAE) have begun to restrict visa issuance to Naija birthday, wedding and weekend party freaks and egomaniacs.

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[ADESINA OLAMIDE]

Things are really getting ridiculous in academia. Maybe this is just not true. So husbands of female VCs will attend (if this is true) too? These wives have no jobs of their own, I presume? They must hang on some husband's transient positions? I have been wondering what their objectives will be.

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[Nimi Wariboko]

Dear Professors:

I think we are thinking too hard about this matter. The simplest explanation is always the best, especially in this case. One of the best and easiest ways to “chop” money in the public sector is come up with frivolous programs and training schemes. In one hot Nigerian day, an official of the state with a heat-oppressed brain, sitting in an air-conditioned office, came up with this idea to “eat” public fund yafu-yafu. 

Why Istanbul as the training site? The answer is simple. They got to “eat” hard currency in the name of estacode, a legacy of British colonialism. This is the money paid to public servants to cover travel expenses. These VCs’ wives and all those involved in the scheme-scam will get huge allowances a day. It could be a thousand dollars, two thousand, or even more a day. The best thing is to collect this money and not travel at all, or go there register and immediately turn back. (On a side note, some Nigerian public officials now pay themselves estacode for even travels within the country)

The organizers will make sure foods and drinks “flow very well well” at the training, so no one will really spend her money on food. The estacode will be pure profit. 

Mind you, the sponsoring institutions would have also paid business or first class tickets for the wives to go to the training. Remember to add local flight charges for some of the wives to travel from their states to the international airports for departure to Turkey. 

The fourth dimension of the feeding trough has to do with gifts. The organizers have to buy appropriate gifts for all attendees of the training program. The gifts could range from simple brand new Apple Watch, latest I-Phone, to a Apple laptop. Well, it could also be in the form of expensive jewelry or whatever bourgeois contraption that attracts the fancy of the organizers. The gifts will not only go to the wives, but also to their husbands for allowing them to go, and to all those engaged in the approving the scam or facilitating it. 

Fifth, money would be allocated to publicity, logistics, technical support, hall rental, administration, protocol,  public relations (often a code term bribes), ushers, security,  blah, blah. Someone will give all these allocations some hair shave, and the off-cut is enough for you to shiver or shake in your boots as a patriotic Nigerian.

In the years I consulted for governmental institutions, including the Central Bank of Nigeria, as an economic and investment banking expert, I saw how this kind of schemes worked. So, we should apply the Occam razor here. Let us not think too hard. Chop-chop don come! 

Nimi Wariboko

Boston University 

On May 5, 2022, at 5:30 AM, 'ADESINA OLAMIDE' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Things are really getting ridiculous in academia. Maybe this is just not true. So husbands of female VCs will attend (if this is true) too? These wives have no jobs of their own, I presume? They must hang on some husband's transient positions? I have been wondering what their objectives will be.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/612643452.4671432.1651728303677%40mail.yahoo.com.

[Toyin Falola]

 

[Toyin Falola]

Dear all:

The meeting of the CVCNUS has been postponed. Professor Ochefu is working on that of the trip to Turkey. The focus now is to return the students back to campus.

Thank you all.

TF

[Toyin Falola]

 Meeting in Turkey has been called off.

[Nimi Wariboko]

Great! 

On May 6, 2022, at 9:47 AM, Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:



 Meeting in Turkey has been called off.

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