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From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
A senior lecturer at the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike (MOUAU), Dr. Philips Nto, has sent a Save Our Soul message to President Bola Tinubu, urging him to mandate Chairman of the Governing Council of the university, Fidelis Edeh, to release his professorial promotion, which he alleged to have sat for over one year ago.
Dr. Nto, who addressed newsmen in Umuahia, yesterday, on the issue, said he was alerting President Tinubu over the matter since Edeh, who is from Enugu State, has been victimising him for not acceding to his request of using his closeness with Professor Maduebibisi Ofo Iwe, the Returning Officer for Enugu, to upturn the result in favour of Edeh’s candidate.
Explaining why he accused Edeh of vindictiveness, Nto said: “Something happened in 2023 during the governorship election in Enugu State. The vice-chancellor of MOUAU, Prof Maduebibisi Ofo Iwe, was appointed the Returning Officer for Enugu State.
“The current Governor of Enugu State, Peter Mbah, was the PDP candidate, while the former minister of Science and Technology, Uche Nnaji, was the candidate for APC.
“Someone who knew my friendship with Prof Iwe came to me with a proposal from Fidelis Edeh that the election should be rigged in the favour of Nnaji.
“I told the emissary that Prof Iwe is a principled Christian who will never engage in fraudulent practices. I thought that the matter had ended until I saw Edeh in MOUAU as the Governing Council Chairman.”
Nto, a former Abia State Commissioner for Finance and Economic Planning, from 2013 to 2015, and the Provost of Abia State College of Education, Technical, Arochukwu (ASCETA), from 2016 to 2023, recalled that he joined the services of MOUAU as an Assistant Lecturer in 2007.
“I obtained my doctorate from the same university in 2009. I was promoted to the rank of Senior Lecturer in 2015. Ordinarily, my promotion to the rank of a professor should be in 2021. All my mates and junior colleagues have been promoted to the rank of professors except me.
“This Council was appointed in 2024 with Edeh as the chairman. He has always been a labour leader all his life and has no experience over academic matters. His attitude and ignorance have been largely responsible for the chaos in MOUAU since 2024.
“But that is not the issue. The issue is that after the Council had sat for more than 10 times, the Chairman has willfully obstructed the release of my promotion. It has been from one excuse to the other.”
Accusing Edeh of vendetta, Nto said: “I won’t know if he came purposely to MOUAU for vendetta. But his actions since 2024 suggest that I have been targeted for punishment because I could not persuade Prof Iwe to rig the Enugu governorship election in favour of Nnaji, whom Edeh was the Director General of his campaign Council.
“My people of Ututu have an adage that when the fowl held by a hawk is shouting and flapping its wings, it does that for people to be aware of its predicament, and not necessarily for the sake of freedom.
Nto said he decided to amplify what he is passing through in the hands of Edeh, not that he will change his mind tomorrow, but that, certainly, he will not be Council Chairman forever, and will definitely get what is due to him.
When newsmen contacted Edeh, he said he would not engage the staff of the university in public discussion, stressing there were internal channels to follow in resolving any issue.
