oxyG:

Don't kill yourself with unnecessary fair!
No one is pursuing you!

Your response signposts how much you know about the matter under discussion. I leave you to yourself. Experience is the best teacher for folks who are not careful about their environment. I have no business with fear. A wise person will pay attention to goings on around him.

In2systemsTech:
There are basically three legitimate ways to become a professor: by climbing the professional ladder in a university; by being appointed to the position from outside academia in recognition of vast and varied industry experience or artistic wizardly in a field; and through a courtesy appointment. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami’s record does not qualify him for any.
Let’s start with the first. Pantami’s undergraduate degree in computer science from the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), Bauchi, was earned in 2003. That’s less than 20 years ago. When he started his academic career as a Graduate Assistant at ATBU in 2004, the computer science department that awarded him his bachelor’s degree rejected him because his degree was “weak”; he was instead employed in the Information Technology section of the Faculty of Management where he also got his master’s degree in 2010/2011 and got promoted to Assistant Lecturer.
In 2011, he got the Petroleum Trust Fund Development (PTDF) scholarship to study for a PhD at the Department of Management in the Aberdeen Business School of Robert Gordon University, which he earned in August 2014.
Upon his return to ATBU, he was promoted to Lecturer 1—skipping one rank. He requested to be promoted to Senior Lecturer but was denied because he had insufficient publication record to justify his request. He resigned in protest and took up an appointment at the Salafist, male-Muslim-only Islamic University of Madinah as an Assistant Professor of Information Science.
In 2016, he accepted a government appointment as DG of NITDA and has never returned to academia since then.
Now, three criteria are used to promote academics: teaching, research, and service. Pantami’s entire university teaching record is less than 10 years—if you consider that he never taught either at ATBU or at Robert Gordon University (although he lied that he did during his senate confirmation hearing) during his three years of doctoral studies.
His research output is even more underwhelming. Although he brags about having “over 160 publications,” his actual scholarly output is really thin for someone who wants to be a professor. When I checked SCOPUS, the well-regarded database of top-level, peer-reviewed academic journals, using his legal name, that is, Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami is the name of his neighborhood in Gombe town, which he doesn’t legally bear), only three articles and one citation came up.
Of the three articles, he is the single author of one (which is actually only a 2-page country report) and a distant co-author in two. All three articles were published between 2018 and 2019 while he’s in government.
But SCOPUS can be unjustifiably exclusionary, so I looked him up on Google Scholar, a more expansive and laissez faire database of scholarly articles and books. He has exactly 10 articles and 39 citations there. Of the 10 articles, he is the first or sole author of 5 and a “tag-me-along” co-author of 5.
Sadly, at least 5 of his 10 articles are in dubious, pay-to-play, predatory journals that would destroy the academic career of any scholar in a serious country. Most of the articles were accepted and published in the same month that they were submitted! Since peer review typically takes months, the articles were clearly not peer-reviewed.
Evidence of a lack of peer review is evident in the fact that several of the articles are riddled with avoidable proofreading and grammatical errors. Plus, many of them, such as one that was basically an unimaginative 7-page rehash of publicly available facts about NAFDAC, are flat-out scholarly scams that a serious undergraduate won’t even be caught committing.
He published only two scholarly articles—in 2013 (from his PhD thesis) and in 2015—before he came to government, which explains why ATBU refused to promote him to senior lectureship. By 2014 when he wanted to be a Senior Lecturer, he had only one notable publication.
There is no serious university in the world that can legitimately promote a former Lecturer I (at ATBU) or an Assistant Professor (at the Islamic University of Madinah) overnight to the position of professor with only 10 substandard publications in predatory journals and 39 citations. The minimum number of publications required to be promoted to professorship in most Nigerian universities is 15. A professor should ideally have at least 100 citations.
Plus, Pantami didn’t spend up to a year as Lecturer I. Nigerian academics are required to spend at least 3 years in a rank. Three years as a Lecturer I, 3 years as a Senior Lecturer, and 3 years as a Reader would give you 9 years. That means he needs to spend at least 9 years in the university after his ministerial appointment— and publish a few more articles— to be qualified for promotion to professor. In Saudi Arabia, it would require at least 8 more years.
(Of course, if he was actually employed by FUTO that “promoted” him, his unmerited professorship wouldn’t have attracted any notice since there are several such examples of perversions of traditions all over Nigerian universities. It’s the absurdity of being promoted to a professor at and by a university he was never affiliated with while he’s a serving minister that made the fraud stick out like a sore thumb.)
Also note that Pantami’s PhD is in management, a social science discipline, not in computer science or cybersecurity. So, it’s doubly fraudulent that he has been “promoted” to the professorship of a discipline he didn’t study or publish in extensively.
His doctoral dissertation, titled “A theoretical and empirical investigation of the barriers to the adoption of state-of-the-art information systems by Nigerian indigenous oil companies,” which is freely available on the Internet, is basically a survey of employees of Nigerian oil companies on their perceptions of IT policies in their places of employment. It’s a social scientific study that any political science, sociology, or economics graduate can conduct.
Now that I have established that he can’t legitimately be a professor anywhere in the world on the basis of his scholarship and pedagogy, can he be appointed a professor on the strength of his industry experience? No! The only other job Pantami has ever done outside of government and his less than 10 years of university teaching is being the Imam of ATBU. He has never invented any cybersecurity patent and has never worked in a cybersecurity company.
The only discipline that can validly appoint him as a professor of practice is Islamic Studies. Say what you may about him, he is one of northern Nigeria’s most prodigious and consequential Islamic exegetes. His oeuvre in Islamic exegesis is unquestionably worthy of a professorial appointment in Islamic jurisprudence. That’s the path of least resistance he should have taken since he desperately desires to be addressed as a professor.
In defense of Pantami’s professorial fraud, one Professor Tukur Sa’ad hashed over a litany of people who became professors without terminal degrees and without prior teaching experience, as if I didn’t already make that point and called it an example of what we call a “professor of practice” in American academe.
In my December 20, 2015 column titled “A Comparison of Everyday University Vocabularies in Nigeria, America, and Britain (II),” I gave an even more dramatic example than Sa’ad’s in the late Maya Angelou who was a lifetime endowed professor of American literature at Wake Forest University but who didn’t have a bachelor’s degree.
Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, JP Clark, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and a host of other literary icons didn’t have—and didn’t need to have—a PhD to become professors. Apart from the fact that they didn’t climb the professorial mountain from the top (they started from lectureship), their path-breaking and prodigiously creative outputs are equivalent to—and in some cases exceed—a PhD.
In North American universities, it's called "Research and Creative Activity" for a reason. Wole Soyinka, Achebe, JP Clark, etc. had vast and varied oeuvres in "creative activity" before they became professors. Plus, during their time, the possession of a PhD was not a requirement to move through the academic hierarchy.
Pantami does not come even remotely close to their record in the field FUTO awarded him a fraudulent professorship. In any case, Soyinka, Achebe, etc. taught at the universities where they were professors. Pantami is a serving minister.
How about a courtesy professorship? Pantami isn’t qualified for that, either. A courtesy professorship is a professorial appointment given to distinguished professors at other universities who need not be at the universities that appointed them.
It’s called an “honorary professor” in some UK universities, an “extraordinary professor” in South African universities, and a “professor-at-large” in others. It’s basically an honor given to people who’re already professors elsewhere, so you can’t become a courtesy professor at another university if you are not already one somewhere else.
Some people said Pantami’s “achievements” as a minister are worthy of a professorial appointment. Haha! OK, so people who imagine themselves to be successful in whatever they do should now apply to FUTO for a Pantamized fraudfessorship to aggrandize their insecure egos?
Look, I’m calling out Pantami’s professorial fraud not in spite of my being a Muslim and his friend but because I’m a Muslim and his friend. My father, who was a Hafiz like him, would disown me if I ignored or gave comfort to fraud.


farooqkperogi

https://web.facebook.com/farooqkperogi

Did Kperoogi just inform us that Pantami's real name is Isa Ali Ibrahim?

Is that not number 5 on the Boko Haram sponsor list released by UAE?

Jeez, you are so uninformed and biased. As a university don, Dr. Pantami is nothing but a featherweight.

Coronabirus:


It is shameful how u accepted the shit written by Kperogi & others without any conscience. Pantami is first class graduate. A university lecturer under study leave is entitled for promotion during the course of his leave because study leave is equally a research so the acclaimed argument is invalid. After finishing his PhD, he was supposed to come back to ATBU due to "bond" but Madina university sent a request begging for his services which later granted by ATBU. Serious international Universities attend PhD students project presentation and hire them by entitcing them with good handsome offer, that was how they saw him.
The claim that some research portal only has few of his publication is baseless and sound like a laziness for them to have failed to fetch his journal publications. Pantami has 15 National and International Journal publications which are worthy enough to make any reader a Professor. Go and check the number of his Journal publications on research gate and you will know that he is above most of Professors from the dept u graduated, go and check. If u are not Science and Technology based then forget it.
Go and see the profile of Wole Soyinka when he became Professor and all ur professors at the time they became one and compare it with Pantami's.

I'm a university lecturer with knowledge of how things work not bear parlour analysis!

Agboriotejoye:


Did Kperoogi just inform us that Pantami's real name is Isa Ali Ibrahim?

Is that not number 5 on the Boko Haram sponsor list released by UAE?

Everything seems to be making sense?

In2systemsTech:



Everything seems to be making sense?

How come no one has noticed that?
It means it's true that BH is part of this govt

Agboriotejoye:

How come no one has noticed that?
It means it's true that BH is part of this govt

It still may be another Ibrahim but one thing we know for sure is that US and now UAE are watching

In2systemsTech:


It still may be another Ibrahim but one thing we know for sure is that US and now UAE are watching

I seriously doubt. Don't forget he was in Saudi till around 2016

Corruption Everywhere.!!

ArewaFanatic:


That is quite harsh! The state of eucation in the country might be bad, but it isnt exactly hopeless and our universities cannot just be waived off as you just did. I quit academics three years ago as a graduate assistant (and seriously, I am yearning to go back). But during my time in academia, I met some (and heard of others) strong willed individuals who are doing everything within their powers to improve things in whatever little way they can. Their powers are limited of course. But more damaging to their effort is actually the presence of nay sayers - those who flat out do not think that our standard can be improved upon and cheer leaders - who cheer them on but do nothing to help.
The onus is on you to decide which camp to join. But for that advancement you crave to be achieved, you must play a role that is neither that of the nay sayer or the cheer leader. I was in there and can tell you that situation is not hopeless.

I appreciate your frank and patriotic response. I am also talking from an insider's perspective. I was a senior lecturer in one of the Nigeria's top university until I left the system for South Africa.

I knew what I sacrificed to better the education system after my PhD in the USA. I got an agreement to with my US associate to develop the engineering education in terms of funding and research infrastructure.

Returning home in 2010, I was frustrated by the university management who was only interested in the money, but unwilling to implement the Research & Development (R&) agreements. My credibility was at stake.

My colleagues, both academic and research, and technical staff, were also enemies within. Many were casual to discharge their legitimate obligation, oppress and coerce students to part with something or teach substandard contents, yet they envy your high quality research publications. With enemies within and enemies without, and the fact that my family wanted the best from me.

Why should I sacrifice everything for a system who did not sponsor me for anything not even any of my three degrees and research? Yet, there were offers from top universities in South Africa, Canada, Europe, America and Asia (Japan & Singapore).

As an associate editor to many top journals, many of our research submissions are fraudulent and plagiarized. How would imagine reference to non-existent equipment in their articles to mislead readers and distort the body of knowledge?

Unless something drastic is done, I see no future for Nigeria. The reforms should come from within. How many professors really profess at all? Are they visible in the Web of Science, ISI, SCOPUS journals?

May God save Nigeria. I weep for Nigeria.