Reno Omokri’s Marketing Of Atiku Abubakar Over His Private University: How Sensitive Is That?
The Oasis Reporters
June 2, 2022
As a committed People’s Democratic Party (PDP) stalwart, media influencer Reno Omokri may not know it, but he is stepping on raw nerves that may put off very many voters and lead them to avoid the opposition political party, less than eight months or thereabouts to Nigeria’s general elections scheduled for the first quarter of 2023.
In a tweet, Reno Omokri who has a large following on Twitter is praising Atiku Abubakar for running one of the best private Universities in Nigeria according to him, even when his statistics do not seem to have been captured anywhere in the education system that is unambiguously known to the media.
He is asking, towards explaining what Atiku has achieved.
“Atiku is the proprietor of the American University of Nigeria, Yola, which is one of the best private universities in Africa, as well as the first American-style university in Sub-Saharan Africa”.
What has Atiku achieved?
— Reno Omokri (@renoomokri) June 2, 2022
9. Atiku is the proprietor of the American University of Nigeria, Yola, which is one of the best private universities in Africa, as well as the first American-style university in Sub-Saharan Africa.#10ReasonsToSupportAtiku pic.twitter.com/5YlZeYizao
Now, that even sounds like a farce when it is remembered that when the fashion in colonial times was for Nigerian subjects to attend universities in the United Kingdom.
But Nnamdi Azikiwe as well as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana attended university in the United States of America. Azikiwe graduated from Howard University.
Thus when Azikiwe became premier of the Eastern Region, he established University of Nigeria, Nsukka, styled in the American model. It is also strongly believed that Nkrumah did the same in Ghana.
University of Nigeria, Nsukka became famous for it’s inventions, with many of it’s students and graduates becoming the brains behind PRODA that moved towards self sufficiency for the region during the civil war.
Such a tweet would do nothing else but lead to guffaws in the South East zone where the people believe that they were manipulated away from the PDP presidential ticket which ought to have been zoned to their region.
To make matters worse, foremost Nigerian leaders like Owelle Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Sir Ahmadu Bello and later Brigadier Samuel Ogbemudia set up public universities for the people and those universities served their purposes. Even Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo equally set up universities in Jos, Maiduguri, Calabar, Port Harcourt, Ilorin, Sokoto, Kano etc, known as second generation universities.
As conditions of the universities continued to deteriorate due to a lack of infrastructural renewal from the neglect of past military rulers, going on strikes became routine. Rather than solve the problems, newer civilian leaders like Chief Obasanjo and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar instead, set up fee paying universities for themselves while they remained in office.
Flaunting that before the Nigerian masses who can not afford the huge fees of the private universities is grossly insensitive.
At least, it is well known that a successor PDP president, Goodluck Jonathan had the foresight to enable states without universities to have one each. He set up quite a few of them in Katsina, Taraba,Yobe, Bayelsa, Ekiti, Jigawa, Nasarawa, Kogi, Gombe and Ebonyi states. Goodluck Jonathan did not establish any private university for himself.
Thus, is this something to brag about or flaunt when university staff are still on strike and students are at home ?
