Rejoinder: How Philip Emeagwali
Lied His Way to Fame- by Professor
Toyin Falola (from
Saharareporters.com 18/10/2010)
First and foremost I am neither the
spokesman of Philip Emeagwali nor
do I intend to hold brief for him.
Rather I am only trying here to
look at the accusations levelled
against him by Toyin Falola and his
Yoruba friends, without bias.
According to Saharareporters, Mr.
Alan Karp the chief judge of the
panel of judges for the Gordon Bell
Prize recognized Emeagwali´s
unique intellectual ability when he
said: “Mr. Emeagwali didn`t win by
default. As a lone graduate student
he solved a harder problem that
could have taken a team to solve. ”
End of quote.
Aside from numerous awards and
recognitions both from the low and
high places, in 1998, Emeagwali
was also awarded the Distinguished
Scientist Award by the World Bank.
The writer of the article - Toyin
Falola - and his friends concluded
that unfortunately Emeagwali was
filled with a false sense of
entitlement and also described him
as a lazy student who only wanted
to earn a PhD without putting in
much work. At the same time,
however, they went further to
contradict themselves in many
areas. For example, they admitted
that Emeagwali was a fairly brilliant
student. Another example is that
they admitted that Emeagwali
holds two Masters of Science
degrees in Engineering from George
Washington University. And yet
another Master ’s degree in applied
Mathematics from the University of
Maryland in 1986. So, a pertinent
question here is, how can a lazy
student, who does not want to
work hard to earn a degree earn
three Master ’s degrees in such
difficult fields as science and
engineering? Does it mean that
because he could not manage to
get his acts together to also get the
“ almighty PhD” that he must be
seen as a failure and should be
discredited by any means
necessary? There are many known
inventors who did not have a PhD.
Anyway, if these writers were not
biased, why didn ’t they bother to
conduct an interview with
Emeagwali to hear his own account
of the whole problem he had with
the University of Michigan? I ask
this question because they
reported that Emeagwali took the
university to court because of the
PhD issue. I know about two African
students who had problems with
some white professors who
supervised their PhD work and the
lecturers failed the students. One of
these two students later went to
another university and received his
PhD. Today, he is a professor and
head of department in a university
in one of the universities in Ireland.
Students could get messed up
sometimes by professors
supervising their work.
The impression the writers of the
article laboriously created on
reader ’s mind was that Emeagwali
was not capable of gaining any
sound academic qualification, not to
talk of winning any award. They
even reduced the Gordon Bell Prize
he won in 1989 to the level of your
run-in-the-mills-awards.
Nevertheless, Mr. Alan Karp
informed the world that Emeagwali
did not win the prize by default.
This is contrary to what Mr. Falola
and his friends wanted the whole
world to believe. They claimed that
Emeagwali actually got a second
position and not a first position. But,
because the Mobil company team
got two first positions and as a
company team, they are allowed
to hold only one position, therefore,
Emeagwali had to be declared
winner since he was a lone
graduate student. This is cruel
seeing the extent Falola and his
Yoruba friends have gone to distort
official records, all in an attempt to
discredit and rubbish Emeagwali`s
reputation. The judge did fault
some of Emeagwal´s wife ’s claims.
This is not a surprise since it did not
come from Emeagwali but from his
wife. I have visited Emeagwali´s
internet website. I did not read
where he described himself as a
doctor or a professor. It is only his
wife that has the title of a doctor.
You will find this at Emeagwal´s
contact information at the top right
on his internet homepage,
www.emeagwali.com.
NO HUMMAN BEING IS PERFECT
As aforementioned, I am not trying
to exonerate Emeagwali from any
of his weaknesses. There is no
doubt that Emeagwali exaggerated
and “over-milked” his
achievements. For example, he
allows people to call him doctor or
professor and has done nothing to
correct that. And he had gone
haywire since his recognition as a
scientist, instead of embarking on
new research. But come to think of
it, there is no human being without
blemish. Hence the question, is
Emeagwali the only one in the
whole wide world that has a
bloated ego and has over
exaggerated and over milked his
achievements?
WHAT ABOUT WOLE SOYINKA AND
LATE GANI FAWEHINMI
I have enormous respect for Wole
Soyinka and there is no doubt that
he is a world-acclaimed scholar. But,
for the past 24 years, there are no
nooks and crannies that Soyinka
has not set his foot on. He once
boasted that he spent most of his
life flying and couldn ’t even
remember where he was a few
days before. He is always showing
off and wants his audience to know
which of the world VIPs he had
dinner or a chat with the previous
night. See http://
www.youtube.com/watch?
v=jnHV0HG6vM4&feature=related
Today, a good proportion of the
world sees and addresses Soyinka
as a professor (which he is not,
since I fear he may not have a
PhD-see, http://
www.universityworldnews.com/
article.php?
story=20080327105613634
) - and as the first African to have
won a noble prize for literature.
Though he knows that this (even
the first) assumption or claim is
false, yet he has done absolutely
nothing to correct the falsehood.
During his life time, Emperor Haile
Selasie 1 of Ethiopia went to a radio
station in
In fact, contrary to Wole Soyinka´s
claim, Albert Camus from Algeria
who also held a French passport
was the first African to win the
Nobel Prize in Literature. That was
as far back as 1957 before Soyinka
in 1986 and Nadine Gordimer from
South Africa in 1991. But the way
Soyinka is running around the
world exploiting his oratorical
English speaking skill, implicitly
coercing his unsuspecting and his
admiring audience to see him as
the only African sage by wearing
his trade mark of blown-up white
hairs and beards leaves much to be
desired. Obviously, he has
succeeded in misleading so many
people to assume that the Nobel
Prize for literature is something no
other person can win except him.
Unlike him, numerous past winners
across the world, including his fellow
African scholars have maintained
philosophical calm and have
invested their time in more
research work to benefit present
and future generations. Soyinka
should learn some element of
humility from Chinua Achebe.
Chinua Achebe´s latest work is The
Education of a British Protected
Child (2009). He is currently working
on another project about the
Nigeria-Biafra war due for release
next year. Wole Soyinka has also
soiled his reputation by venturing
into the corrupt, dirty and mucky
waters of the Nigerian politics, by
forming many quack and corrupt
political parties in the past that
never saw the light of day. His
current Democratic Front for a
Peoples Federation (DFPF) political
party is well known by many
Nigerians to have links to the “Evil-
Genius” Babangida,- his old-time
friend, who gave him the post of
the director of the Road Safety
Corpse, during his evil rule. And at
that time Soyinka´s Nigeria Road
Safety Corpse overtook the Nigeria
police in bribing and corrupting
Nigeria, particularly road traffic
users. As a dramatist, he has never
stopped dramatizing his life. Even
the novel that won him the Nobel
Prize The Man Died he wrote in
1972 and which was influenced by
his prison experience and notes is
not seen as a masterpiece by the
majority of the people. The late
Afro-beat king, Fela Anikulakpo
Kuti heavily criticized the book.
Indeed, when it comes to literature
and other academic fields, we all
know that the Yoruba people have
many great and humble scholars.
Hardly anybody hears about them
except Soyinka. There are people
like Wande Abimbola, Femi
Osofisan, Niyi Osundare and
countless others whose names ring
bells.
This serves to show that no matter
how good or bad you are in
whatever you do, bold steps,
oratorical skills, and self-promotion
are important in our crazy world of
today. Maybe this is why people
like Soyinka and Emeagwali have
gone haywire in drawing attention
to themselves. This maybe also the
reason why people like our most
respected human rights crusader
and legal luminary in Nigeria, late
Gani Fawehinmi, was able to make
it in life. He was bold enough to
take on the Nigerian governments
of the day squarely. He also
vigorously promoted himself
through championing the cause of
the ordinary people, despite his
very weak academic qualification
from the United Kingdom.
According to the Yoruba-born Alex
Akinleye, erstwhile minister for
information of Nigeria, Gani
Fawehinmi only earned a third class
law degree. But, today, Gani
Fawehinmi is a household name in
Nigeria and beyond, and did win
many awards.
From time, superstitious beliefs,
myths, and assumptions, which
give rise to spurious claims, have
been part of human nature. The
world has been told that
Christopher Columbus discovered
American. But you and I know that
before he arrived in “the new
world,” as America was known at
that time, there were natives living
there. Also he is credited to have
discovered Jamaica, whereas there
were already Awrak-Indians and a
few people of African descent
inhabiting the land. And those
people swam to his ship and
offered him food and tobacco,
because he was too afraid to swim
ashore. See, http://
www.youtube.com/watch?
v=DHxw088qQms
There is no other place in the world
this deceit has become the order of
the day than in Nigeria and the
self-styled “God’s own country” -
America. In “God’s Own Country”,
dangerous lies are perfectly
covered. For example, when a
husband is caught in an extra
martial affair, because such
disclosure could cause both political
damage and undermining of the
country ´s authority at home and
abroad, the wife would go on the
mainstream media to cover up the
lies. No wonder, Dr. Donita Brown-
Emeagwali, the wife of Emeagwali
is doing her best to shield
Emeagwali from allegations
levelled against him by Toyin
Falola and his friends. What is
unique about America is that the
lies are promoted and nurtured to
earn liars millions and billions of
dollars. This is why Americans like
to live bombastic life and their
economy by and large a credit-
based economy, built on lies upon
lies. For example, while I respect
many of their Hollywood stars, yet
the fact remains that some of the
Indian-Bollywood, Nigerian-
Nollywood and even recently
Ghanaian-Gollywood stars are
better actors than them. But,
because they have the big media,
big plots, big budgets, big markets,
everything about America will
continue to dominate in the world.
In America, everything has to be
big, otherwise it will not be
perceived to be good enough. I
was amazed at the size of the
Georgia International Congress
Centre when I visited there in 2004.
I was also amazed at the size of a
non-denominational World
Changers Church International
(WCCI) in College Park Atlanta,
owned by African-American “Man
of God” - Creflo Dollar. One wonders
how America got this whole land, I
have heard many times that they
intimidated and stole lands from
Mexico.
The world loves our only living
boxing legend Cassius Marcellus
Clay, Jr. aka Muhammad Ali. But as
the American he is, the rest of the
territories he could not conquer
through boxing he did with his
humorous and oratorical skills, and
self-promotion, by making many
spurious claims upon claims. For
example, he claimed that he has
the type of knowledge that Jesus
Christ had or the type of
knowledge the biblical Moses and
Abraham had, and posited that as a
religious leader you must display
your wealth otherwise people
would not believe in you or
become members of your church.
Aside being a one-time boxing
heavy weighty champion of the
world, this other side of his life
made him to become one of the
“ most beautiful brides” that were
courted by the mainstream world
media. See http://
www.youtube.com/watch?
v=jnYCTh_DSLM&feature=related.
Therefore, there is little wonder
that Philip Emeagwali imbibed this
typical American mentality and
bombastic lifestyle having lived
there for over three decades.
PERTINENT QUESTIONS AND
ACCUSATIONS
A pertinent question here is, was it
a happenstance or by design that
the writer of this most disparaging
article about Emeagwali on
Saharareporters.com and his friends
are all Yorubas? Once again, let us
take a look at their names:
Professor Toyin Falola, the author,
with contributions from his friends,
Dr. Ms. Okelola, Dr. Ola Kassim, and
Professor Mobolaji Aluko. They tried
to be smart by half by including a
Benin man - Professor Pablo
Idahosa, to make it have some
kind of national outlook. Even
though I do not have any problem
that some Benin guys force
themselves to appear Yoruba.
Bolaji Aluko, in his envy is, still with
the help of Saharareporters.com,
battling one Igbo lawyer in the USA
called Emeka Ugwuonye. Aluko,
whose family lived at Nsukka
before the Biafra War, has been an
Internet Tiger, writing all sorts of
nonsense about Igbos. He is so
filled with envy against Igbos and
their achievements. He has ganged
up against Igbo lecturers in
American universities and
elsewhere. Even the Emeagwali he
had vowed to destroy was the
same man about eight years ago,
who once came to his defence
against some Igbos whom Aluko
had wrongly offended. This is how
Aluko and his father pay back the
Igbos for harboring them during
the Nigeria-Biafra war, and ensured
their easy passage to Western
Nigerian. It is unfortunate that
because Aluko apparently has no
more readership in the
underground, he has now come out
with his anti-Igbo crusades. And
unfortunately the
saharareporters.com has stoop too
low by becoming a willing
accomplice. Otherwise, how come
that not only they have published
more than 5 sponsored disparaging
articles in less than one week on
the Emeagwali, but has wickedly
published a picture of Emeagwali
posing in handshake in an event in
New York with the discredited
Governor of Delta State, Emmanuel
Uduaghan, conspicuously the same
day he was sacked as the governor
of Delta State, by the Court of
Appeal in Benin City. Unlike the
good work they were doing when
they started, the
saharareporters.com has been
lately losing readers every day
because they have derailed by
engaging in “junk journalism”
every now and then.
Obviously this composition on the
Emeagwali write-up has made the
writers vulnerable to all kinds of
accusations. For example, they
have been accused by the majority
of Igbos of blackmailing of an Igbo
illustrious son who had achieved
world fame. While Falola and his
Yoruba friends might quickly scurry
to a cheap defence by accusing
those Igbos of being tribal jingoists.
But then, how about the majority
of Africans, and people of African
descent and patriotic Nigerians who
viewed their article as rubbishing
the reputation and outstanding
work of a fellow Nigerian and
African. Another accusation is that
since all of them are PhD holders,
did they not act out of jealousy,
considering the fact that Emeagwali
without a PhD has achieved world
fame in both academic and
scientific fields and collects
appearance fees and lecture fees
or speaker fees that is many times
the annual remuneration of a
senior university professor?
Perhaps, this could be one single
reason why one of them, Dr.
Kassim the head of a department
of one of the Canadian universities,
turned down his students ’ request
of inviting Emeagwali to come to
their university to deliver a lecture
and to interact with them. He
claims that Emeagwali´s asking fee
of $10.000 and a driver during his
stay in Canada was too much,
coupled with the fact that
Emeagwali did not have a PhD. But,
maybe, if Emeagwali were a
Caucasian academic or better still
one of his fellow Yoruba friends in
the academic field maybe Dr.
Kassim would not have denied
those poor Canadian university
students that rare opportunity to
come face to face with their role
model. Also, another one of Falola`s
female Yoruba friends Ms. Okelola
bragged about how she refused to
publish Emeagwali on her
Africanacafe website when
Emeagwali requested her to do so.
The gist of Toyin Falola and his
Yoruba friends ’ article about
Emeagwali centered on these key
points: Emeagwali does not have a
PhD, but claims to have one and
allows people to address him as a
“ doctor or professor.” Emeagawli
claims or allowed people to call him
“ father of the internet.” They
claimed that they wrote the article
to expose these lies and to inform
the world who the real Emeagwali
is. But the irony of it all is that it is
the same world that gave him
those accolades, titles and prefixes
that Falola and his friends are
complaining about. So what is
actually their problem? I have seen
the interview where Emeagwali
had clearly told a beautiful
Jamaican TV moderator that he is
not the father of the internet or the
inventor of the internet. Continuing,
he explained on the same TV
Programme to another male host
that many people contributed to
the development and invention of
the internet, and that it is not a
one-man thing. He also said that
the Gordon Bell Prize he won was
viewed at that time (1989) as a
Nobel Prize in computing. See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=pMFy9sBLFQQ&feature=related.
And also
Judging from the above claims
allegedly made by Emeagwali, one
would like to know if they are
serious enough to warrant that
onslaught. Hence, real facts simply
put across without bias will be
understood by the whole world.
But, since this is not the case, many
people therefore believed that
Toyin Falola and his Yoruba friends
must have some kind of ulterior
motive behind this attack.
Otherwise, they would not have
spent such amount of time writing
pages upon pages of comments
demonizing and describing
Emeagwali in a most despicable
way. And, also, they would not
have been so bitter in their writing,
which manifested in the many
denigrating and unprintable names
they called him such as fraud star,
most sophisticated con man, 419
kingpin, biggest liar of all time, etc.
There are yet other people who
believe that Toyin Falola and his
Yoruba friends were unjust to the
world-acclaimed computer scientist
and Mathematician, a harmless
man, who never duped anybody
but just working hard to promote
himself, the African race and his
work to the benefit of the world.
And many people are wondering
and do want to see Toyin falola
and his Yoruba colleague ’s article
about the white American Bernard
L Madoff, who perpetrated the
world ’s biggest financial scam by
swindling his depositors of over $50
billion. They also want to see Toyin
Falola´s article about the biggest
financial scam of $6.7 billion in
France, perpetrated by debonair
white French man Jerome Kerviel,
an employee of Societe Generale
SA. The whole world is waiting to
see if Toyin Falola and his Yoruba
friends would use the same
despicable words and venom they
have poured on harmless
Emeagwali also on these two
world ’s biggest white swindlers. Up
till now, the world has assumed
that it is only Nigerians, people of
African descent and indeed people
from so-called third world countries
that are scammers.
CONCLUSION
Superstitions, self-promotion and
wild assumptions, which give rise to
claims upon claims, have always
been there from time immemorial.
Although, this mentality has been
part of human nature, but there is
no country where this mentality
has pervaded all facets of life than
in America, in which Emeagwali has
lived for three decades and
therefore has become assimilated.
Finally, majority of the people that
read Toyin Falola and his Yoruba
colleague ’s disparaging article on
Emeagwali viewed it as a
disingenuous act and, therefore,
concluded that it is a typical crass
case of (PhD) “Pull Him Down”
syndrome. And, since Toyin Falola
and Yoruba friends are Africans and
also Nigerians as Emeagwali, the
people had also viewed it as a
good example of the African adage
that says “it is only the frog’s kith
and kin that can mercilessly kick on
his delicate water filled-belly. ”
By Sakhos Silas Ejiofor, Wiesbaden-
Germany