Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Pantami’s Fake Professorship Joins Other Intellectual Frauds

Ken:

Pantami's case landed me on an island of caution: how not to use an apparent corrupt case to signal to the Nigerian society that there are excellent practices that the Universities must promote to attract outstanding talents. If the University based at Owerri had been open about the process, revealed the man's CV, explained his contributions to the world of knowledge and technology, I would have been defending the appointment. We are all agreed that talents, creativity and research are located outside of the universities. R&D in major companies have become so impactful that many universities cannot even compete with them. The young IT guys don't care about higher degrees or research papers but about creating "products." Universities can do what they like in a non-corrupt atmosphere to recruit them. Thus, the balance is to make the public aware that we are not opposed to recruiting talents but opposed to corruption. What Farooq sees as fraud, I see as madness. I revised my thinking yesterday, relating Pantami's appointment to the behavior of Zuma, an ongoing process of state capture.

 

TF

 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu>
Date: Friday, September 17, 2021 at 2:33 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Pantami's Fake Professorship Joins Other Intellectual Frauds

hi toyin

i've stayed out of this thread since i don't know pantami or the issues, except superficially. i get the gist, the politicization of the academy, but i can't say i know how it works in nigeria.

however, the extension of the debate carries forward in two ways that need, let's say, refinement.

whatever  a university might expect from its professoriate, that has changed dramatically over the years, and changes as i speak. makes no sense to me to ask about the requirements in einstein's day compared with today--especially since his initial failures to secure a post had to do with his relation with his advisor (I believe).

going back earlier, the requirements for advancement were radically different from today's, and universities were often, initially, schools of religion, whatever that meant. now most universities don't even offer degrees in religion.

 

secondly, each profession is different. famous great surgeons, say, need have no university affiliation. my son, who is a quantum computer scientist, had as advisor a scientist who was not an academic--he worked for ibm--still does, is highly regarded, but still not an academic. lots and lots of physicists find work in institutes or centers like Perimeter, which is an institute (sorry had to capitalize to avoid confusion).

in our field, we have creative writers and then teachers of creative writing, and profs who teach fiction. we all kow tow to the great writers, and thinkers. some have university affiliation; most don't.

 

or might have.

 

how about film directors? some like spike lee teach at universities; most do not. and their affiliation w universities is a gift to the university, not vice versa.

there are many many professions like that: politicians and poly sci, for instance. i mentioned health and medicine. another is law.

who is more famous as a jurist: a university prof or a major judge?

 

last point: as i was finishing my career, 3 yrs ago, it became apparent that my grad students were more likely to make impressions on hiring committees with teaching portfolios more than research. that might not be true with the ivies, but it is w state schools. a seachange from 20 years go.

ken

ken

 

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2021 7:11 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Pantami's Fake Professorship Joins Other Intellectual Frauds

 

Thanks.

 

I'm puzzled, though.

 

Does anything about my contributions on this subject suggest anything relating to the idea that all geniuses should be offered professorships?

 

I thought my argument was about unusual cases in the award  of professorships, suggesting the variety of this phenomenon?

 

A professorship is a form of guild recognition, by a group of people who have come together to practise a discipline, the discipline of scholarship or scientific and technological creativity,  according to particular principles, and who develop various means of recognition for fellow members of the guild.

 

The central means of recognition in this context are  titles indicating levels of career progression and of corresponding increase in income, with the academic professorship being the pinnacle of this recognition.

 

 

Not all practitioners of those disciplines belong within that guild and so fall outside the career path culminating in such recognition.

 

The provision of such recognition to those outside the guild would therefore be an exception.

 

Academic professors are academics, scholars employed by a university to research and perhaps teach. 

 

Academic work implies not only scholarship or a particular kind of scientific and technological creativity, a core it shares with such cognitive work everywhere, but particular rules about methods of assessment and methods and  platforms of presentation, represented by peer review and academic publishing, along with conventions about methods of training represented by the various levels of university education.

 

Academics culture themselves in terms of this system and expect to reap it's rewards, a central aspect of which is the professorship.

 

Not all scholars or creatives are interested in all or parts of this system and so prefer to do their work outside it.

 

Some may identify with it but be unable to gain acceptance. In spite of his PhD, Einstein could not get an academic job until his 1905 papers and the US philosopher and scientist C.S. Pierce was not so fortunate in spite of perhaps his PhD and recurrent applications after he lost his non-tenured job at John Hopkins.

 

Not all scholars or thinkers are academics, therefore it's unusual for them to become professors.

 

I earlier quoted Paul Guyer on Kant's predecessors amongst the founders of modern Western philosophy as being Independent Scholars, with Kant being the first academic-the first full time philosopher and university research worker among them.

 

A similar list could be drawn up in modern scientific cosmology, with the line from Copernicus to Kepler to Brahe to Newton, with Netwon being perhaps the first academic, the first of these founders of modern scientific cosmology to work in a university.

 

The professorship has value particularly for people who identify with the career progression and systems of recognition of academia and are prepared to work along the lines that implies.

 

Not all scholars and creatives share such identification.

 

The philosopher Spinoza was offered academic jobs  and honours but declined, preferring to remain in his work grinding and designing lenses.

 

What Newton and Kant gained from the professorship may be said to be  economic stability and a conducive working environment, enabling them to concentrate on the work for which they have become known.

 

Ironically, I wonder if the  conditions in which they worked are possible anymore.

 

Their careers are marked by about a ten year silence after gaining the professorship, a period in which they did not publish but privately developed their ideas.

 

Newton does not even seem to have had a focus on publication but invested himself in a complex mix of private and at times deeply secretive  investigations of which his physics was one expression and may be described as  stimulated to write up his greatest work, the Principia, on the urging of another scholar. 

 

The bulk of his work in various fields, to the best of my knowledge, from alchemy to Biblical study,  remained unpublished until centuries after his transition, allowing their interrelationship to at last be understood.

 

Will any contemporary  university in the highly driven contexts of the West where these scholars worked allow a professor to remain unpublished for ten years?

 

A major problem between Cornel West, then a very high ranking prof at Harvard and the  then Harvard President Larry Summers  may be described by one view as West's efforts at reworking his mode of scholarly activity, with one observer stating that West had not published a single authored book for some time, something seen as disturbing, particularly in contrast to  West's very active cultural activism, making a rap record and appearing in the Matrix film, if I recall correctly.

 

In some other less driven contexts, in other countries, the professorship has been known to imply for some that having reached the pinnacle of their profession, they need not publish any more or do any more research.

 

Different strokes for different folks.

 

Thanks

 

Toyin

 

 

 

 

On Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 22:47 Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.emeagwali@gmail.com> wrote:

My question is for Toyin A.

 

Would you recommend that all geniuses

should be given professorship?

 

 

GE

On Sep 15, 2021, at 18:36, Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:



Dear sir:

This is not contributing to the issue but abusing the other person. I did not read the posting thinking that you were raising serious intellectual objections.

TF

 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Salimonu Kadiri <ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 5:18 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Pantami's Fake Professorship Joins Other Intellectual Frauds

​The title of Farooq Kperogi's article of Saturday, 17 April 2021, was : Pantami is My Friend, But He Can't Be Defended. That was when the Federal Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami was under public pressure to resign because of his alleged previous romance with Islamic terrorist organisations. I pointed out in my response then that contrary to the title of the article Farooq was actually defending Pantami. Farooq informed his readers that Pantami earned his PhD from UK's Robert Gordon University in 2014 presumably to justify his appointment as a Communication and Digital Economy Minister, which had nothing to do with his past romance with religious extremists. I stated further in my response to Farooq's defence of Pantami in April 2021, that Professor Farooq Kperogi is a narcissist simply because he attributed his defence of Pantami to what he termed " ..scores of people have importuned me to intervene in the controversy regarding Communication and Digital Economy Minister, Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami's utterances before he came into government .."  That scores of people appealed to him to intervene was an imaginary grandiose image of himself since he did not tell his readers the names of all who appealed to him. Obviously, the reason for his intervention in favour of Pantami is insignificant to his audience. What really happened was that being a professor, Farooq regarded himself superior to Pantami who is an ordinary PhD holder. That was why he chose to defend his junior, Pantami. Now, almost five months later, Pantami acquires professorship and Farooq feels deflated as a professor and he has to reinflate himself by degrading Pantami publicly even when the acquired title will not make Pantami a good and efficient Communication and Digital Economy Minister. Since 2019, Pantami has been in control of Nigeria's massive data and telephone infrastructure, but bandits have been able to kidnap people and negotiate for ransom through telephone conversations with the abducted families without the kidnappers being tracked down by the nations legal forces. As if professorship is a required qualification to being appointed a Communication and Digital Economy Minister, Farooq is enraged by Pantami's acquisition of professorship and not earning it. Here, the validity of what clinical psychologists say on marcissism comes into play. The narcissist, clinical psychologists say, has the capacity and ability to empathise, but ultimately his/her own needs come first. The narcissist empathy is often short-lived as he/she will acknowledge that someone else is suffering, but that will quickly dissipate so that the narcissist can get back to his/her own self-promotion. That is why Pantami can be a friend of Farooq in April and to become an enemy in September.

 

Introducing his Saturday, September 4, 2021 article to readers, Farooq Kperogi wrote, "The following column was first published on the back page of Saturday Tribune on July 27, 2019 but has been fraudulently attributed on social media to Pat Utomi who has refused to disclaim it even when I've called attention to the intellectual scam of *falsely attributing authorship of the expression of people's ideas to well-known people who didn't author them* in an October 12, 2019 column titled, 'Epidemic of Plagiarism in Nigerian Traditional and Social Media.' I'm reproducing and updating it both because of its renewed relevance and in order to reclaim the theft of my thoughts." 

 

Patrick Okedinachi Utom, popularly known as Pat Utomi, is a Nigerian professor of political economy and management. I am not aware if he belongs to this list serve, not to talk of him reading what Farooq has written about him. A careless reader, however, would get the impression that Pat Utomi has, through his social media proxies, appropriated to himself an article written by Farooq, but Farooq lacks evidence to that effect. There is no evidence that Pat Utomi ever asked anyone on social media to attribute the authorship of Farooq Kperogi's article to him and the right place for Farooq to ask for a disclaim are the relevant publishing social media. Yet, Farooq went on to accuse Pat Utomi of refusing to disclaim the authorship of his (Farooq's) article attributed to him by saying, "even when I've called attention to the intellectual scam .."   Here, Farooq's "I've called attention to the intellectual scam" is not specific as if he were to write, I've called his (Pat Utomi's) attention to the intellectual scam. Pat Utomi may not even be aware that he is being accused by Kperogi of theft of thoughts on this forum.

 

Reading Farooq Kperogi's articles confirm what clinic psychologists say of narcissism. Briefly they say, in unison, that a narcissist is not a self-confident person, he/she is empty and is not in command of his/her emotions and sense of self. Characteristically, a narcissist lacks empathy, he/she is very arrogant, he/she disrespects other points of view, and he/she feels entitled and grandiose. Lack of empathy, clinical psychologists say, may be the key defining characteristic of a narcissistic person resulting in his/her inability to identify with or recognise the experiences and feelings of other people. Everything is about him/her and belongs to him/her. The narcissist  smoothly oversteps the personal boundries of others, mistreating, devaluing, and humiliating people to bend others to his/her desires. The narcissist does not care or understand how other people feel and rarely considers other people's feelings in his actions or words. The narcissist will often say cruel things in an offhanded manner and is oblivious to the pain he/she causes with his words. He/she is the hunter and others are his/her prey. He/she is beset with underdeveloped conscience. The narcissist has poorly regulated self-esteem. Thus, he/she is chronically reliant on the opinion of others to form his/her own sense of self and is always comparing him-/herself, his/her status, his/her possessions and his/her life to other people to determine his/her sense of worth and self-esteem. With the natural resources at our disposal in Nigeria and the academic qualifications of Nigerians in various fields of education, Nigeria should not be an underdeveloped country. Pityingly, that is not the concern of Nigeria's obese  intellects.

S. Kadiri

 

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: 12 September 2021 00:48
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Pantami's Fake Professorship Joins Other Intellectual Frauds

 

Different situations.

 

The Reformation created it's  own serious criteria for recognition of achievement among clergy.

 

Idahosa is a Pentecostal, with its own rules.

 

Honorary PhD is not the same as an earned PhD.

 

Which academic rules are Pantami and the other Nigerian politicians Farooq is challenging operating within?

 

One of the reasons why many Nigerian institutions do not enjoy global standing is beacause of  attitudes.

 

Attitudes that represent negative flexibility.

 

Flexibility towards low standards.

 

If anyone wants to be a professor the person should be able to clearly demonstrate  the criteria on account of which they deserve such recognition.

 

Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote only two books and, if I recall well, one or few articles in his entire academic career, one of the books being published perhaps posthumously, yet he is known as a great figure of Cambridge academia and of Western philosophy.

 

Assessments based on the quality and impact of his work.

 

Recently retired Oxford professor of Hinduism, Alexis Sanderson, never published a single book, in an academic culture where books are central.

 

Yet even a layperson such as myself can recognise the encyclopedic scope of his essays and their groundbreaking character, leading to the pervasive presence of his work in the field.

 

What is the person's contribution to knowledge that justifies a professor hip?

 

Rowland Abiodun became  professor at the then University of Ife with not up to ten articles if I recall correctly and, adding one or two more articles  and a co-edited book,if I recall correctly,  subsequently moved to the US as a professor, publishing his book length summation and rethinking of his work decades later.

 

Yet, each of those articles is a defining force in the study of  Yoruba and African aesthetics, demonstrating an unequalled density of visual and verbal exploration, examples and analyses. 

 

All done at Ife up till 1990. 

 

Standards, standards...

 

 

Thanks

 

Toyin

 

 

 

On Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 23:24 OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

 

 

Well, Christiandom had similar views on consecration of Bishops until the Reformation.  Prior to that a Bishop Idahosa would not be recognised because he did not climb the ladder of Catholicism.

 

I recall the columnist expressing the same disdain toward honorary doctorates when he was newly awarded his PhD.

 

Its a wide world

 

 

OAA

 

 

Let those who believe in majority rule clamour for its practice at the centre in Nigeria come 2023.

 

 

 

Sent from my Galaxy

 

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Salimonu Kadiri <ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com>

Date: 11/09/2021 21:41 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Pantami's Fake Professorship Joins Other Intellectual Frauds

 

This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com) Add cleanup rule | More info

​Nigeria is a country where titles can be bought and sold, forged, or rented or even be made up. This is because most Nigerians do not like to be ordinary persons. They have to be great somebody. They have to be important, very important person even when they add negative values to the community in which they live. 

 

Some years back, the former Governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu, used to append the acronym *MNO* in backet after his names which is equivalent to the abbreviation of the National Honour Award known as, Member of the Order of the Niger. When an NGO threatened to take Kalu to court for fraudulently claiming to be *MNO* Kalu claimed that his own 'MNO' was Igbo Chieftaincy title derived from Mmadu Oha Nile, meaning Man of the People.  After his tenure as the Governor of Abia State (1999-2007),  Kalu was tried in court for stealing N7.2 billion from Abia people. He was finally sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in December 2019 but in May 2020 the Supreme Court of Nigeria ordered his release because a wrong Judge pronounced the right sentence. Although the Supreme Court ordered retrial, the fraudulent man of the people has hitherto been free from new trial. Fraudulent man of the people with fraudulent title.

 

Talking about titles, the case against the Director General of Bacita Sugar Refinery in Kwara State, in 1985 is worth recalling. The DG was accused of claiming to be a PhD holder in Bio-Chemistry whereas he had only a BSc on the subject. It was further disclosed that he registered for a PhD in the subject at Manchester University in the UK which he did not attend. Cross-examining the prosecution witness, the DG's defence counsel asked if the witness in the Nigerian context could tell the court the difference between a PhD and BSc holder, a professor and an Alhaji or a Reverend or a Chief. When the witness kept mute, the defence counsel said, " I put it to you that they are mere titles." The witness nodded affirmatively but the defence lawyer insisted on getting either yes or no as answer. And the witness answered *yes*. The lawyer further asked the witness if a PhD qualification was required to be a DG of Bacita Sugar Refinery to which the witness answered no. This brings out the fact that Nigeria's Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) are manned by Nigerians whose academic titles are far more superior to the problems they are elected, selected, appointed or employed to solve. Educated Nigerians are like pangolin, always pretending to be crocodiles but lacking the courage and the amphibian dexterity of crocodiles. The only traits of crocodiles in most of the Nigerian intellectuals are the big mouth, small brains, extreme laziness and opportunistic lifestyles. Instead of talking about who is a genuine professor or not, I challenge Nigerians to research and debate the sociology of failed educated elites in Nigeria for producing darkness whereas light has been paid for, parched throats whereas potable water has been paid for, squalors whereas shelters have been paid for, cemeteries whereas roads have been paid for, morgues whereas hospitals have been paid for, and imported fuel whereas four refineries have been built and are allocated 445,000 barrels of crude oil per day to produce fuel for domestic consumption. Farooq Kperogi is not serious in criticising Pantami for newly acquiring the title of professor. I will give reason for why I think he is not serious later.

S. Kadiri   

 

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Farooq A. Kperogi <farooqkperogi@gmail.com>
Sent: 11 September 2021 06:41
To: USAAfrica Dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Pantami's Fake Professorship Joins Other Intellectual Frauds

 

Pantami's Fake Professorship Joins Other Intellectual Frauds

By Farooq A. Kperogi

Twitter: @farooqkperogi

It emerged late last week that Communications and Digital Economy Minister Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami (or his agents) possibly instructed Zamfara State governor Bello Muhammad Mutawalle to place an advertorial in the Daily Trust to congratulate Pantami on his "promotion to the Rank of Full Professor of Cybersecurity" by an unnamed university.

(In the advertorial, Mutawalle repeated the dishonestly hyperbolized claims Pantami cherishes and promotes, such as the claim that he has over 160 publications—which don't show up in any scholarly repository—and that he was trained at Harvard, MIT, and Oxford even though he only attended a few days' workshops there while in government. He used the American English "full professor" that the Islamic University of Madinah where Pantami taught also uses to describe what is simply called "professor" in British and Nigerian terminology. Since Mutawalle isn't an academic, it's obvious that Pantami wrote the advertorial for him.)

I later learned that Pantami's "professorship" was granted by the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, where he has never taught. It doesn't take much thought to see that the "professorial promotion" and, worse, its promotion in the media is some self-humiliating intellectual duplicity perpetrated by Pantami himself.

The last academic position Pantami held before he became DG of NITDA in 2016 was an assistant professorship (roughly equivalent to a senior lectureship in the Nigerian system) at the Islamic University of Madinah where he taught for two years after his PhD in 2014.

Before earning his PhD in the UK, he taught at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU) in Bauchi as a junior lecturer. At no point in his academic career did he ever teach at the Federal University of Technology, Owerri. So, only ATBU or the Islamic University of Madinah could have legitimately promoted him to the position of professor.

But he couldn't possibly be promoted to professorship at the Islamic University in Madinah because, having terminated his contract with the school to take up a government appointment, he is no longer in the school's employ. Plus, his last rank at the university was an assistant professor. 

To be promoted to full professor he would first need to be an associate professor for at least 5 years, but he was assistant professor for only two years, and you need to be an assistant professor for at least 5 years to be promoted to associate professor. 

At ATBU, he was either a Lecturer II or a Lecturer I—or perhaps an assistant lecturer— before he left the school for his doctoral studies. To become a professor there, he would first need to be promoted to a senior lecturer and then a reader (which is called Associate Professor in the North American system) before becoming a professor. That would take at least 6 years.

In other words, Pantami is not qualified to be promoted to the rank of professor in the two universities he has some associations with. Most importantly, though, he is not qualified to be appointed professor by and at ANY university in the world because he does not teach, research, or render service at any university now.

A professorship isn't a flippant, honorary title that can be arbitrarily conferred on people who pay for it—like honorary doctorates have become. It is the crowning accomplishment and the highest professional rank that is bestowed on people who teach and research at a university. It's like the position of permanent secretary for the civil service, editorship for journalism, ambassadorship for the diplomatic service, managing directorship or the position of a CEO for the private sector, or being a field marshal in the military.

You can't be made permanent secretary and not work in the civil service, an ambassador and not work in the diplomatic service, an editor and not work for a media organization, a CEO and not be associated with the company that made you CEO, or a field marshal and be away from military service. 

Pantami is a "professor" who doesn't profess, who doesn't teach, research, or render service at the university that supposedly conferred the title on him. That's a down-the-line intellectual scam that he should be ashamed of. It's one of the most intellectually violent vandalisms of time-honored academic conventions I've seen in a long while.

As a religious cleric whom many young people look up to, Pantami should know better than to perpetrate fraud, promote it through third parties, and then swank it himself with unabashed hauteur. If he has any honor and really desires a professorship, he should disclaim this fraudulent "professorship" and earn it the right way.

After his tenure in 2023, he should go back to either ATBU or the Islamic University in Madinah and spend at least 6 to 8 years teaching, researching, and rendering service. Then he might legitimately earn a professorship. Different universities have different criteria for promoting academics to the position of professor. Some prioritize teaching over research. Others prioritize research over teaching. Still others strike a happy balance between the two.

If he is too impatient to follow the conventional route to professorship, he can get the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, to make him a professor of practice in cybersecurity AFTER his ministerial tenure. This will, of course, require him to relocate to Owerri and actually teach students there. Professors of practice don't have to go through the traditional protocols of academic promotion because it is their industry experience, not their scholarship or pedagogy, that is the basis for their employment.

My friend Kingsley Moghalu was a professor of practice at Tufts University in the United States. Although Nigerian universities don't have a tradition for appointing professors of practice, there is always a first time. If Pantami can bludgeon a university into "promoting" him to the position of "professor" even when he has zero formal association with it, he can cause it to do anything.

 But to pretend to be a "professor" when he isn't qualified to be one—and when he doesn't teach and has never taught at the university that conferred the position on him—is the sort of self-debasing fraud a religious leader shouldn't be identified with.

To be sure, Pantami's fraudulent "professorship" isn't new. As I pointed out in my June 25, 2011 column titled "Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke's Fake Doctorate and Professorship," former Nigeria Stock Exchange boss Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke, whose PhD is fake, got her "professorship" the exact way Pantami got his: through intellectual legerdemain. The University of Nigeria Nsukka made her "professor of capital market studies" in 2007 without having ever taught a course at the university before and after her conferral.

The late Dora Akunyili's path to professorship was less fraudulent than Okereke-Onyiuke's and Pantami's but it was also unusual. As I wrote in the June 25, 2011 column, "Although she taught at [UNN] for long, she left for public service when she was many ranks away from a professorship. Curiously, however, it was while she was officially away from teaching, research, and university service that she mysteriously skipped several ranks and became a 'professor'."

In my December 5, 2020 column titled "Ganduje and Fraudulent American 'Professorships' for Nigerian Politicians," I called attention to the growingly maddening titular vanity among Nigerian politicians that causes them to want to be known as "professors." "You see, bought honorary doctorates have lost their gravitas and the 'Dr.' title has now lost its sheen among Nigerian politicians, so they are moving to the next level, which is bought 'professorships'," I wrote.

A U.S.-based Cameroonian academic by the name of Victor Mbarika used to routinely scam Nigerian politicians into thinking they had been appointed to "professorship" at a historically black Louisiana university called Southern University. Ike Ekweremadu was told that he had been appointed "professor" at the university. Ganduje was also scammed by the same guy until his scam was unveiled.

Pantami appears to be leading a detour back to home universities for the conferral of fraudulent "professorship" on politicians who can pay compromised university administrators. Fortunately, the NUC is now headed by Professor Abubakar Abdulrasheed, a conscientious, ethically sound, thoroughbred academic who has a reputation for doing the right things.

 I hope Professor Abdulrasheed will cause the NUC to sanction the FUT, Owerri, for the intellectual fraud it has perpetrated in "promoting" an undeserving non-employee to its highest academic rank and ensure that other mercenary university administrators don't replicate this swindle in the future.

 I also hope Pantami has enough decency left in him to renounce the professorial fraud he wears— in the interest of the sanctity of what remains of Nigerian university traditions.

Related Articles:

Complicity of Nigerian Media in Intellectual 419 of Academics

Our image as a nation of scammers (I)

Our image as a nation of scammers (II)

Intellectual 419: Philip Emeagwali and Gabriel Oyibo Compared

Gabriel Oyibo and Philip Emeagwali: A Clarification

Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke's Fake Doctorate and Professorship

Bait-and-Switch Publishing: New Face of Academic Fraud

Print-on-demand Book Scams and Nigerian Universities

Re: Print-on-demand Book Scams and Nigerian Universities

On Bauchi's Fake Lecturer—and What Should be Done

Andy Uba and the Epidemic of Fakery in Nigeria

On Fowler's Fake Doctorate and Integrity Deficit

"Mathematical" Enoch Opeyemi and the Making of Another Nigerian Intellectual 419er

Remember Enoch Opeyemi Who Claimed to have Solved the Riemann Hypothesis?

Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

Professor

Journalism and Emerging Media

School of Communication & Media

Social Science Building 

Room 5092 MD 2207

402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State University

Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com

Twitter: @farooqkperogi

Author of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World

Nigeria's Digital Diaspora: Citizen Media, Democracy, and Participation

"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will

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