Fraud and the Emeagwali Narratives
The huge Nigerian, and indeed African community in the United States engages in intense and constant debate on a list serve run by Professor Toyin Falola - SAAFRICADIALOGUE. In the run up to the 50th anniversary celebration of Nigeria's independence, the key issue of concern to the community was fraud and the Emeagwali narratives. Anyone that has googled Nigerian achievers on the Internet would have come across the "great achievements" of one Philip Emeagwali. The question posed was whether he is the greatest Nigerian achiever in the contemporary world or a monumental fraudster? In the numerous citations about his so-called achievements, we read that he has a PhD in scientific computing from the University of Michigan, that he is the father of the Internet and the inventor of super computers. He claims to have invented 41 patented devices including a timing device, non-capsizable container, sweepstake programmer, random unit generator amusement device, and bidirectional monitoring and control system and so on. In an interview by Susan Henderson for the book African-American Inventors, Philip Emeagwali presented his achievements in the following manner: "...Invented methods and procedures for making computers faster and more powerful. These methods enabled me to perform the world's fastest computation of 3.1 billion calculations per second in 1989 and solve the largest weather forecasting equations with 128 million points in 1990. Programmed a computer with 65,000 processors to outperform the fastest supercomputer and thereby proving that it is best to use many processors in designing supercomputers. Successfully implemented the first petroleum reservoir model on a massively parallel computer in 1989. As a result, one in 10 parallel supercomputers is used to find and recover additional oil and gas. Solved one of America's 20 Grand Challenges - accurately computing how oil flows underground and thereby alerting the petroleum industry that massively parallel computers can be used to recover more oil. Only 30 percent of the oil in a reservoir can be recovered and this discovery will enable oil companies to recover more oil. Invented a new approach of designing supercomputers by observing and emulating patterns in nature. Formulated new mathematical (partial differential) equations for slowly moving liquids and gases such as the flow within the Earth's interior." Under Olusegun Obasanjo, the Nigerian Government invited and celebrated Philip Emeagwali as one of our shining stars in the Diaspora. This was at a time in which there were claims that the best Nigerian brains are abroad and we should bring them back to develop our country. Those of us in the country were considered failures that could not get positions abroad. The problem with Philip is that the university has now revealed that he never completed his doctorate degree and checks at the United States Patent and Trademark office did not show up patents with the name Philip Emeagwali. He has not published in any reputable peer reviewed journal. The conclusion is that narratives about his achievements are a fraud. The claims about his achievements have however been cleverly spread in numerous web sites, and today many curricula on African and Black achievements have him as a star example. Black youth in Europe go around with his photographs in their school bags determined to be as "great" as Emeagwali when they grow up. One of the most poignant aspects of the saga is the manner in which Gloria Thomas Emeagwali was dragged into the debate. Gloria is a top ranked professor of history in the United States. She is a good friend of mine from our days as junior lecturers in Ahmadu Bello University in the early 1980s. At that time, she was recovering from a bitter divorce with a different Emeagwali who had studied with her in Trinidad and Tobago, married her and brought her to Nigeria where she suffered a lot of abuse. To her shock, she found her photograph cut and pasted on Philip Emeagwali's web site with the fraudulent claim that she is his wife. She put a disclaimer on her own web page and has sued him in court. When she drew attention to this in the on-going debate, many questioned her sincerity. As one commentator put it ""Emeagwali" is not a common name, like Okeke, Okafor or Ojo. We know not whether Gloria bears ANY past or present relationship with Philip beyond a common last name." The suspicion was that she might be his estranged wife trying to get at him, which is extremely unfair allegation for the Gloria I know. At that point, the debate got dirty between so called Igbo bashers and Igbo defenders derailing the core issue about fraudulent claims of this man. The most painful issue of the debate is that Nigeria bashers in the United States are now singing narratives about how most Nigerian academics in the country are 419 scholars. We have great Nigerian scholars at home and abroad. We also have great fraudsters at home and abroad. Not all that is abroad is good. __,_._,___ |
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