THE AKWA IBOM STATE UNIVERSITY SAGA: PROF. ENO IBANGA AND HOW UDOM REWARDS CORRUPTION


It's now State-wide news on the intermittent strikes organized by the unions of the State owned institution, Akwa-Ibom State University under the name Joint Action Congress (JAC) comprising of the ASUU, NASU and NAT.


These strikes according to the Union leaders are due to non-payment of arrears of shortfalls of 25% of salaries due staff from January 2020 to December 2020, non-payment of leave grant for the year 2020 and the refusal of the University to upgrade their salary structure to align with the new minimum wage structure as approved by the Federal Government.


These evils started when the former Vice-Chancellor of the University, Prof. Eno Ibanga just one year to the expiration of his tenure decided to shortchange and defraud his staff by slashing their salaries by 25% and bluntly refusing to pay the new minimum wage structure to staff. During his last year, he refused to pay leave grant as at when due and was compelled to pay when staff revolted.


To successfully carry out his evil plans, he introduced confusion into the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), AKSU Chapter, thereby dividing the leadership and imposing his psychophant fellow professor as a fake leader of the Union therefore destroying every possible opposition to his vicious actions.


Having defrauded the staff of the Akwa-Ibom State University by non-payment of full salaries let alone the implementation of the new minimum wage, the Governor, Mr. Udom Emmanuel, at the expiration of his tenure, appointed Prof. Eno Ibanga as the Commissioner of Works and Fire Service for a job well done at the University. What a monumental failure of leadership!


The interesting fact is that the former Commissioner of Education, Prof. Nse Essien, who was then the boss to the former Vice Chancellor and who ofcourse was an accomplice to the successful looting of the University funds was then made to become the new Vice-Chancellor of the University on the recommendation of Prof. Eno Ibanga in order to continue his agenda of suppressing and defrauding the staff of the University.


The same Prof. Eno Ibanga who claimed there was no money to pay staff their full salaries nor to implement the new minimum wage payment structure fraudulently gave employment to about 120 new staff including his student supporters during his second-term campaign for the incumbent governor, Mr. Udom Emmanuel, which obviously couldn't have been without a large chunk of funds from the University.


Today, the perpetrator of this evil, Prof. Eno Ibanga is dining with the Governor at the Government house while the University staff are crying, lamenting and going through untold hardship having been defrauded and denied of their legitimate rights to their due salaries.


In a system that works, Prof. Eno Ibanga should have been sacked, thoroughly questioned and investigated, would have been asked to render full account of funds of the University, all his fraudulent staff employment withdrawn, and punished according to the laws of the State for the heinous crime so committed but this is not the case, no not in Akwa-Ibom State.


Today, the State owned University cannot even afford steady supply of electricity because "there's no money". The generator now runs at irregular hours and is shut down before the close of work for the day. At some point, there was no water in the school for weeks because the pump was bad and again because "there was no money" as revealed by a member of staff. All these happened because the former Vice-Chancellor wrecked the University's funds in his pursuit to lobby for a political appointment who today has been "duely rewarded" by His Excellency, the State Governor, Mr. Udom Emmanuel.


When these kinds of attrocities are committed and perpetrators rewarded with political appointments, one wonders if there's any hope for the posterity of Akwa-Ibom State University and by extension, Akwa-Ibom State.

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