ASUU-Pantami feud: ‘NUC, Ministry of Education, ASUU should tell Nigerians what it takes to be a professor’

On Monday, the  Academic Staff of Union of Universities (ASUU) gave its verdict on the professorship awarded to  the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Ibrahim Pantami,  by  the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO) ,describing the appointment as illegal.

At a media briefing held at the University of Lagos  at the end of its two-day marathon meeting of the union’s National Executive Council, ASUU said the review of the processes that led to the minister’s appointment as a professor of Cybersecurity by FUTO, did not harmonise with  the laid-down procedures within the university system.

According to ASUU President, Dr. Emmanuel Osodeke: “ASUU NEC rejects in its entirety the purported appointment of Dr Isah Ali Ibrahim Pantami as a professor of cybersecurity.  From the evidence available to us, Dr Pantami was not qualified, and the said appointment violated established procedure for appointment of professors in the university.

“NEC directs all members and branches of our union throughout the Nigerian federation not to recognise, accord or treat Dr Isah Ali Ibrahim Pantami as a professor of cybersecurity under any guise .”

The latest decision by the nation’s academic union was a follow-up to an earlier decision taken in 2021, when it set up a committee to visit FUTO to investigate the circumstances leading to the appointment. It  said the minister should resign his position for breaching due process as he cannot be a serving minister and still occupies a professorial seat in a university, adding that  the education sector had been left to rot by the government.

“He is not a lecturer at FUTO and if he wants to be, let him resign his position and go and teach. All those involved would be sanctioned by our union including the Vice Chancellor,” the ASUU president said.

Authorities of FUTO have explained reason  the university made Pantami, a professor, saying  that the name he gave to the university was Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim before his appointment. It also  insisted that the appointment of the minister to the position of professor “followed required due process.” 

The Registrar of FUTO,  Mr John Nnabuihe, told  the Tribune that  “The university knows him as Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim based on the documents in his file submitted,” adding that he was assessed alongside other internal members who were also appointed as professors.

Nnabuihe defended the promotion as deserving, saying it was “based on his qualification which he merited through long years of research works.”

The FUTO Registrar  said: “Somebody who is not your staff, you cannot promote him.” Nnabuihe said that after Dr Ibrahim graduated in Computer Science, he started as a lecturer at the Abubakar Tafawa Belewa University. Dr Ibrahim, according to him, later went to another university in Saudi Arabia and was thereafter appointed as an “Associate Professor,” which was where he stayed for some time until he was appointed as the Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) which he said was “like a research institute.” 

Born on  20 October 1972, in Gobe , North East Nigeria, Isa Ali Ibrahim commonly known as Isa Ali Pantami, is an Islamic cleric. He holds the degrees of  BTech and M.Sc  from Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University , Bauchi, MBA in Technology  Management and  a PhD from  Robert Gordon University  , Aberdeen  in Scotland , United Kingdom.  He also holds certificates in Digital Transformation from Harvard University, Digital Strategy from both Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Institute of Management Development (IMD), Lausanne, Switzerland, Strategic Leadership from Oxford University, and a University of Cambridge Certification in Management.

 Ibrahim lectured at various universities and other higher institutions for almost two decades, teaching ICT courses. During his early days, Ibrahim was a lecturer at the Federal University of Technology, Bauchi for over a decade, prior to joining other universities.

The truth is that ASUU and FUTO have  not told Nigerians what it takes to be appointed a professor; because it is needful that the National University Commission (NUC) and Federal ministry of Education speak up on this matter.   Professorship, for all I know ,  is the highest academic attainment   in the universities  and  tertiary institutions around the world  and the processes  or criteria for  attaining  the position  are  always specified by  countries.  The criteria do not significantly vary  among countries.

A person who lectures in the university is not  a teacher as such , because his/her  major work is research. Teaching/lecturing is just about 25 %  of the job. So, university lecturers are researchers and that is what they are called  in Central Europe or even in Europe in general.

In Nigeria, the first step to becoming a professor  is the possession of a PhD ( in some countries ,it is a master’s degree . In law , for instance in the US, most of the law professors do not have more than a JD). So, in addition to the minimum qualification, and community works ( depending on the institution and country),  an applicant for professorship shall  have written and published  between 50 and 60 academic articles in their respective fields, in reputable academic journals ,within and outside their countries.

In some cases , opinions of external assessors are required  as  one of the conditions. I am in the know of the case ( in the late ‘80s)  of a  Senior Lecturer with an LLM  in the Faculty of Law  of  the University of Lagos, who  was seeking the position of an Associate Professor. His case was referred to  an external assessor in South Africa who advised that  the applicant did not merit the position and his application was rejected.

 I know another Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law of the same university whose application for associate professorship  was delayed by the university  even though he met the requirement. As at that time , he had published over 45 articles in  reputable international law journals  among them Stanford Law Journals and Emory Law Journals. When he went for a sabbatical leave  in Europe, the rector of the university told him  that members of the academic community  had been reading his  works and he was going to be engaged as an Associate Professor. On his return  to Nigeria, the university quickly upgraded him.

I am also in the know of a well-respected Senior  Lecturer  at the  same university, who had acted as a Head of Department and produced professors and great administers but could not be appointed a professor because he was not writing and publishing articles. The person in question holds a PhD from one of the reputable universities in New York , United States. He retired from the system without attaining the position of professor. Another lecturer with a First Class degree and advanced degrees from London School of Economics and Political Science , and Harvard University retired from the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) without attaining the position of a professor. He left the system  as a Reader. 

Some years ago Ndi Okereke–Onyiuke was awarded  a professorship by the UNN . The appointment was contested but nothing happened.  

Did FUTO consult an external assessor before appointing the Isa Pantami as a professor? What are the criteria?  The NUC, Federal Ministry of Education, ASUU should tell Nigerians what it takes to be a professor.