Dr. Bolaji Aluko,
Congratulations on your appointment as the pioneer Vice Chancellor of one of Nigeria's proposed new federal universities. It is to your advantage that the university that you have been appointed to lead is to be sited in the home town of Nigeria's President. The presumption must be that you will be one of the new Vice Chancellors that will be least obstructed in the discharge of lawful duties. You will have an effective recourse that your fellow new Vice Chancellors may not have namely a direct line to Nigeria's President if he is re-elected.
In writing publicly about the genesis of your appointment, you anticipated some of the negative comments and commentaries that your appointment was going to attract. I commend you for this remarkable act of honesty and transparency. You have started a practice that I hope will endure with future appointees.
I do not think that you need a lot of advice from all comers including me, to successfully take on this enormous challenge. I believe that you know right from wrong, good from bad, the probable from the impossible, and most of all what may work and what may not in the corrupt, fluid, Machiavellian, and turbulent environment of public life in Nigeria. You have been called to public service. You choose to accept the call. All your family and true well-wishes want for you is great personal and professional success. Give this opportunity to serve your best effort by trying your hardest all the time. There will be hurdles and road blocks but most of them can be overcome with thought, reason, caution, and patience. Be guided by an achievable and livable mission, and feasible goals, and measurable objectives. You must keep your eyes on the hills with your feet on the ground. This is not a daunting challenge. It is a job that you can do if you set your mind to doing it as I believe that you have. It is only a job. It is not your life. I believe that you will know not to be like the rest but to be the best.
Congratulations again and good luck.
oa
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of EUGENE NWOSU
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2011 11:54 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Government appoints vice chancellors for new federal universities, Prof. Aluko,my condolences!
Dear Prof. Aluko,
I am one of those who have congratulated you. Yet, I remained troubled. My concern is in line with the underpinning truth and wisdom counsel by Compatriot Toyin; which would be perilous to ignore. Let your personal code of conduct be integrity; for it's better to be poor and walk in integrity than to be compromised, crooked and tainted even though rich. Please be careful, Sir.
With best wishes, always
Positively
Eugene Nwosu
Tel: +353 (0)87 7635 734
www.strategicbookpublishing.com/OptimalEdge.html
Emails: eugenenwosu201@hotmail.com; eugenenwosu@gmail.com; info@optimaledge.net; Eugene@optimaledge.net; eugenenwosu@yahoo.com
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> Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 20:11:45 -0600
> To: USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
> From: toyin.falola@mail.utexas.edu
> Subject: Fwd: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Government appoints vice chancellors for new federal universities, Prof. Aluko,my condolences!
>
>
> From: a.dasylva@ibadanculturalstudiesgroup.org
> Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:36:44 +0000
>
> Dear Prof. Aluko,
> I am genuinely worried at your recent appointment as one of the VCs
> for the newly created federal universities, and disturbed by the
> avalanche of congratulatory messages from colleagues,friends and well
> wishers. No doubt,you eminently qualify but that is not the issue. I
> see a deliberate distraction by political schemers of the ruling
> party playing on the naivity of the citizenry. Have you sat down to
> weigh the implications of such political abracadabra the power of
> pronouncing 9 universities into existence as if they were 9 bottles
> of beer? I wonder where colleagues kept their memory and simply
> jumped at celebrating a cleverly orchestrated Trojan horse or Greek
> gift. On Federal appointments: Tai Solarin of the blessed memory and
> the People's Bank, Wole Soyinka and the Federal Road Safety
> Commission, Prof Sam Aluko and the National Economic Intelligence
> Committee,etc., and most recently, Prof. Jega and INEC. The story has
> been the same, frustration for lack of tools to work with, for lack
> of the right people to work, undue interference from Government, etc.
> The first three were deliberately nearly disgraced out of office. It
> was their pedigree and good reputation they had built for themselves
> over the years,their dedication and passion for their beloved nation
> that bailed them out! Jega's is still a question of time, and that is
> almost predictable, except there is a divine intervention. The case
> of stolen DCMs, registration manipulations and other desperate moves
> by the do-or-die politicians are mere tip of the iceberg. Sufficient
> to remind Jega that being an academic or a former President of ASUU
> does not make him a magician that is capable of running an efficient
> INEC given the existing structure he met on ground.
> Prof Aluko, you are more or less a moving encyclopedia of information
> on Nigeria and as such possesses an impressive knowledge on how
> Nigeria has continued to be misruled by the current ruling Party,so I
> actually thought that you would turn down the offer on the grounds
> that(1) creating a Federal university in every State of Nigeria is
> the least of options to cater for many of our youth seeking
> university admission,(2) existing Federal universities could be
> better funded, expanded, and equipped to accommodate more
> students,(3)the so called money given to establish each new
> university is inadequate to develop a world class Faculty of Science.
> Besides, don't be deceived as contractors appointed by the same
> government agents are already laying ambush to pounce on the money so
> that less than a third of the money will finally end up doing the
> work on the site. If the project finally fails,guess who will carry
> the blame? You of course. That is the tradition here. I think well
> meaning Nigerians should insist that Federal govt should be concerned
> more with making all our redundant refineries work, repair our road
> network, make the trains move on our railways again, and find
> permanent solution to electricity generation and distribution(4) FG
> should create employment opportunities for our youth. Alas, a nation
> without visionary leadership perishes. The well wishers,no doubt,may
> have had good intentions,but it also puts a question mark on the
> fragile principle of followership. How come suddenly we all forgot to
> remind ourselves that most Nigerian universities have severally been
> described as 'glorified secondary schools'! The same
> proprietor-government of the Federal Universities no sooner than it
> announced the creation of additional 9, that President Jonathan
> suddenly turned a super hero, Ikole people were at war in the course
> of which lives were,as usual,wasted! A country where every house is
> its own local government- must produce its own water by bore hole or
> buy 'pure water', must generate its own electricity, construct its
> own road,provide its own security "vigilantes", will find it very
> hard to convince discerning minds that creating additional 9 Federal
> universities is capable of solving all the problems highlighted above
> or remove the pathological greed in most if not all the serving
> politicians in Nigeria.
> My fear with your kind of appointment has always been that when good
> people like you accept FG's Greek gift, you not only end up being
> messed up, your credibility is all they need to legitimize the many
> crimes they are committing on daily basis against all Nigerians who
> do not belong to the ruling class.
> So my dear brother Bolaji, I love you so much,but as things are right
> now,my condolences.
> Demola Dasylva
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN
>
> --
> Toyin Falola
> Department of History
> The University of Texas at Austin
> 1 University Station
> Austin, TX 78712-0220
> USA
> 512 475 7224
> 512 475 7222 (fax)
> http://www.toyinfalola.com/
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> http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs
> http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
>
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