Fake professorship to Pantami: Kperogi wants NUC to sanction FUTO - ITREALMS

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A Nigerian-American academic and media scholar, Farooq Adamu Kperogi, has charged the leadership of the National Universities Commission (NUC) under Prof. Abubakar Adamu Rasheed to invoke necessary sanctions against the Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO) for awarding ‘fake professorship’ to the sitting Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Ibrahim Pantami, reports ITREALMS.

Farooq Kperogi and ES, NUC Prof. Rasheed

Prof. Rasheed, ITREALMS gathered is the Executive Secretary (ES) of NUC with vision to be a dynamic regulatory agency acting as a catalyst for positive change and innovation for the delivery of quality university education in Nigeria, whilst its mission statement is to ensure the orderly development of a well-coordinated and productive university system that will guarantee quality and relevant education for national development and global competitiveness.

Reacting to the purported award of ‘full professorship’ to Isa Pantami, Kperogi in his latest column entitled “Pantami’s Fake Professorship Joins Other Intellectual Frauds” said, the minister has succeeded in bringing this untold fraudulent record back home.

“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,” he decried, but expressed optimism that fortunately, the NUC is now headed by Professor Rasheed, a conscientious, ethically sound, thoroughbred academic who has a reputation for doing the right things.

Kperogi also implore Prof. I hope Professor Rasheed to cause the NUC to sanction the FUTO, for the intellectual fraud it has perpetrated in “promoting” an undeserving non-employee to its highest academic rank.

This, he said, would ensure that other mercenary university administrators “don’t replicate this swindle in the future.”

Kperogi, an academic and media scholar hoped Minister Isa Pantami, who is an Islamic cleric still 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.

If he has any honor and really desires a professorship, he should disclaim this fraudulent “professorship” and earn it the right way,” he asserted.

Insisting that to be promoted to full professor, Isa Pantami 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.

Kperogi posited that for instance, at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU) in Bauchi, Isa Pantami 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,” Kperogi said.

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Pantami’s fake professorship joins other intellectual frauds by Farooq Kperogi - ITREALMS

He maintained that Isa 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.

According Kperogi, “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.”

As said by him, “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.”

He further expressed confidence that NUC under Prof. Rasheed would take relevant steps to cause a deterrent especially for FUTO and the university community in the country.

Remmy Nweke/DoP