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11/08/20
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5:31 PM

In an inexplicable rush to appoint an unqualified candidate as Vice-Chancellor, Federal University, Otuoke, Bayelsa State has lowered the qualification bar to accommodate a ‘son of the soil’ Dr. Teddy Charles Adias who happens to be the current Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the university.  

Dr. Adias’s Record of Service (copy attached) shows that he entered the service of the Niger Delta University (NDU), Bayelsa State on 1st October, 2014 and was appointed a professor on entry. Prior to that, according to his Curriculum Vitae (copy attached) he was Provost of the Bayelsa State College of Health Technology (BYCOHTECH), Otuogidi, established in 2005, from 2008 to 2015; Visting Reader, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, 2013 – 2014, Senior Lecturer (Adjunct), Madonna University, Elele, Rivers State  2007 – 2011, Part-Time Lecturer, Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt, 2001-2010. 

From the foregoing, it is clear that Dr. Adias’s FIRST appointment as a FULL-TIME Lecturer in any university was on 1st October, 2014 as a professor at NDU where he served for about 1 year before transferring to Federal University, Otuoke, Bayelsa State in November, 2016.

The fact of the matter is, as of today, Dr. Adias has only held a FULL-TIME lectureship or professorship position in any university for a total period of 5 years including 4 years spent at Federal University Otuoke where none of the programmes he studied for his degrees -  Bachelor of Medical Laboratory Science in Haematology and Blood Transfusion Science, Master of Science in Medical Microbiology and PhD in Immuno-Haematology is offered to students.

It is pertinent to note, also, that Dr. Adias did not attend any tertiary institution or university as a FULL-TIME student since during the period he obtained his academic degrees at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology (1990-2006) he was on active military service with the Nigerian Navy (1988-2000) or employed as a Clinical Scientist at Nigerian Agip Oil Company, Port Harcourt (2000-2008). 

Although Nigerian Federal universities are empowered by law to appoint their Vice-Chancellors, guidelines from the Federal Ministry of Education (copy attached), which represents the President of Nigeria, the Visitor to the universities, specifies that a candidate for the post of Vice-Chancellor must have been a professor for at least 10 years. Federal universities have conventionally complied with this requirement. 

However, Federal University, Otuoke has lowered the bar to a period of 5 years post professorship qualification for the position of Vice-Chancellor (copy of advert attached) specifically to accommodate Dr. Adias’s inadequacy, in clear contravention of government guidelines and convention in Federal universities.

The university is doing so  in spite of the fact that Dr. Adias’s arrival 4 years ago, and his appointment as Deputy Vice-Chancellor by Professor Seth Accra Jaja, the outgoing Vice-Chancellor a year later, has brought nothing but strife and chaos to the young university; a situation that has divided staff into feuding cliques and engendered cult activities among students. Presently, there are more than 15 court cases brought against the university by its staff. 

More so, Dr. Adia’s 8-year tenure as Provost of BYCOHTECH during which time the college’s programmes were never accredited calls into serious question his competence as an administrator. 

In order to arrest further deterioration of academic and social activities in Federal University, Otuoke, the Federal government must not allow the appointment of such a patently unqualified candidate as Vice-Chancellor over better qualified candidates. 

Opinion AddThis :  Original Author :  Ejike Mokolobia Disable advertisements : 
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5:31 PM

Fellow Americans,

Nobody knows the joy of winning better than I do, believe me. I have always been a winner for as long as I can remember. Okay? Nobody knows the beauty of fighting to win better than I do. I am always a fighter and when I fight, I win.  Everybody knows that.

I have reached the very top. Absolutely. And I reached the top at a very tremendous speed. You all know it. The first time I ran for office, I ran for president. It was beautiful. Right? What usually takes great men three attempts before they get a win, I won in a landslide the very first time I ran. I heard that it has never been done anywhere else in the world.

In the last four years, I have accomplished for America things that presidents that were in office for twelve years did not accomplish. It is not even close. I made America a big-league winner again. I put billions and billions of dollars into your pockets through my amazing tax cuts. I have shown you that everything is possible if you have the right man to do the right job. Everybody is saying so.

All over the world, there is huge respect for America again, in some cases, even massive fear. Bigly! Which is good. I made it happen. Nobody messes with America because I highly insisted on it. I placed America first, which is fair. I stopped those out of control dope and overrated countries that get away with murder at the expense of America. It didn’t happen again. Not on my watch! I was tough so that America would be triumphant.

The world had never seen anything like that before.

Because of me, the next generation of Americans will grow up knowing that America is the greatest nation on earth, full of courageous men like me. Thanks to me, they will grow up knowing that ours is a Christian nation where it is allowed to say Merry Christmas. Our children and grandchildren will grow up knowing that the whole world is out there for them to dominate and not bow to the sissies who think that we must worship the environment at the expense of the staggering economy that I built.

Frankly, I have done everything that I set out to do – most of which were things that have never been done before. I have in place the greatest military that humans ever assembled for our incredible men and women in uniform. I assembled it in just four years by rebuilding our powerful military that they destroyed due to neglect and incompetence. I secured America from coast to coast with walls and wires, cages and visa bans. I took care of it, just as I promised I would do. I returned America under God. Before I came, they had taken America to the shrines of the devil.

Americans love me because of these outstanding accomplishments. I have seen it on the faces of fabulous Americans while I travelled around the country in the last few weeks.

To be perfectly honest, I could stay around and fight. And it is a fight that I know that I will win. But I have decided not to. There is no point.

I believe that I have nothing else left to prove. My achievements will be around till the end of time. I won’t be surprised if, by January 20, 2021, my face would go up on Mount Rushmore to join other presidents of my calibre. It won’t surprise me one bit. People think it is going to happen.

To all my special supporters, I say thank you for the unbelievable fantastic ride. Don’t despair, for I will send you a brilliant comforter. Those stupid little lightweights on the other side who have no clue may taunt you. When those clowns do, remind the goofy and crooked losers that I made America great again. Tell those terrible lowlifes that they have proved themselves unworthy of Donald Trump’s genius and have opted to reduce America to a Second Class nation in the world. Total Disaster!

So, my fellow American, I bide you all farewell.  May God bless you, and my God bless the United States of America.

Yours truly,

President Donald J. Trump

The 45th President of the United States.

Correct Me If I Am Right AddThis :  Original Author :  Rudolf Okonkwo Disable advertisements : 
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2:31 AM

I suspected the pregnancy will not be carried to full term and now, it’s playing out. Even before the US electoral monster conceived by President Donald J. Trump was weaned, a few African countries are already taking delivery of their own premature electoral monster babies.
 
We saw that in Mali a few months ago when the military cited fraudulent elections as the reason for toppling President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, leaving the regional body, ECOWAS, confused and stranded. 
 
Alpha Conde followed in Guinea by maneuvering himself in place for a third term presidency.
 
Tanzania is the latest theatre. While we were riveted on the cable networks following the pathetic US elections, Tanzanian President John Magufuli wangled his way back to power for a second term in a landslide victory that Trump could only envy.
 
Magufuli could not wait to win -- and he won in a way that left his opponent, Tundu Lissu of the Chadema party, with just enough breath to thank God that he survived and none to spare for any post-election complaints. 

The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) also made a clean sweep of the legislature with 97 percent of the seats in its control. Just the place that Trump would love to have former Vice President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party, if he could. 

Azu Ishiekwene
 
Magufuli’s government launched the first attack about three years ago with a charge of sedition, brought against Lissu and three other Tanzanian journalists. Lissu who later indicated interest in running for presidency, had called Magufuli a “petty dictator”, something close to a mortal sin in that country today.
 
The state was mad. Even though reasonable Tanzanians can’t find a better word - or even another word - to described Magufuli’s clampdown on press freedom and opposition, the state was nonetheless livid that Lissu had the effrontery to call out the president. To make matters worse, he was also nursing the idea of challenging him in the October presidential poll.
 
But neither the sedition trial nor the recent assassination attempts on Lissu that left his car with over 20 bullet holes has broken his determination to challenge the increasingly tyrannical system. 
 
On the eve of the presidential election in Tanzania last week, Lissu and other members of the opposition expressed concerns about the prevailing cloud of intimidation and warned of systemic attempts to rig the election to pave the way for a Magufuli electoral landslide.
 
Magufuli’s government has made a good job silencing the opposition, including restricting access to social media under the convenient posture that he is the bulwark against so-called imperialism.
 
Somehow, a man who has spent more time making a fetish of himself as a messiah of sorts yet on whose watch living conditions among Tanzanians have barely improved, still managed to beat his own first term electoral record by clearing 84 percent of the votes, leaving a generous 13 percent for his closest rival.
 
East African election observers found nothing wrong with the vote. They arrived in Dodoma with blinkers supplied by the African Union which see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. 
 
The observers could not even pretend to be uncomfortable with reports of widespread voter suppression or the electoral system that could not be challenged anywhere once results were declared. They simply rubber-stamped Magufuli’s re-election and took the next plane.
 
In the past, the US would have spoken out loud and clear against the travesty in Dodoma on October 28. For months now, human rights groups and civil society organisations in Tanzania and elsewhere have been warning about deteriorating conditions there, but the US has been too far gone in its Trump malaise to either pay attention or to be sure its attention would be meaningful.
 
There was some noise, of course -- a muffled sound from US Ambassador to Tanzania, Donald J. Wright, who tweeted on November 2: “Reports of arrests of opposition leaders are extremely concerning,” adding, “I urge the government to ensure the safety and security of all opposition leaders, cease these targeted arrests, release detainees, restore telecommunications, and afford due process under the law to all citizens.”
 
That was before November 3, when the elections in the US started, leaving Magufuli looking like a Boy’s Scout in the business of electoral hubris. 
 
There is more in play. President Alassane Quattara of Cote d’Ivoire has arm-twisted the country’s parliament to give him a third-term. In an election he was not qualified to contest and which was boycotted by the opposition after weeks of violent repression claimed 40 lives, Quattara said he won 94 percent of the vote on Monday. Not a single prominent continental voice has squished.
 
From Rwanda to Uganda and from Togo to Guinea, there is a growing tendency among leaders on the continent to bend the rules to secure their grip illegitimately or extend their stay in power. 
 
And there’s hardly any question that these rule-benders share the same umbilical cord with President Trump into whose political family the world could well expect more deliveries of fraudulent electoral manipulators sooner than later.
 
Under Trump, the US has shed all pretence to the lofty standards and values that once defined American exceptionalism. We can criticise Magufuli, Conde and others all we want, but they share a common bond in shenanigans with the US president.
 
Where Trump maliciously impedes the postal service and defames constitutionally provided mail-in ballots; his cousins elsewhere bend the rules to exclude other candidates from the ballot. 

Where Trump wants vote counting to stop and for him to be declared winner regardless, his cousins elsewhere simply write the figures and ask the electoral body to announce them. And where Trump packs the Supreme Court with justices sympathetic to him in expectation of an electoral quid pro quo, his cousins elsewhere put electoral disputes out of the reach of judicial review.
 
The difference perhaps is that while voters elsewhere will throw their dictators under the bus if they could; the voting pattern in the current US election suggests that just as many US voters love Trump warts-and-all, as those who genuinely believe the system is broken and has become a danger to itself and the world.
 
The Trump era and the undisguised pushback to retain it even at the polls, is one of the most damaging legacies of the last four years. It will cover the US in shame long after Trump is gone.

Ishiekwene is the MD/Editor-In-Chief of The Interview

Opinion AddThis :  Original Author :  Azu Ishiekwene Disable advertisements : 
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