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A Nigerian Federal University Moves to Separate a Professor from His Family, Patrick Yande
Documents that are available reveal that the professor’s wife, who is also a senior staff member of the university, has a separate official apartment assigned to her, for which she pays rent, from the professor’s apartment, for which he also pays rent. Despite this, Professor Paul Omojo Omaji insists on forcibly evicting Professor Shilgba and severing his family from him…
The Admiralty University of Nigeria, Ibusa, Delta, a federal university in the country’s South-South, has provoked reports that present a concerning image of the increasing impunity that permeates Nigerian culture, especially in educational institutions.
On Friday, February 2, the university’s Registrar, Commodore Isaac Mankilik (rtd), signed a letter titled RESTRICTION FROM ADMIRALTY UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA CAMPUS, with reference number ADUN/REG/EGA/TS/01. The letter was addressed to Prof. Leonard Karshima Shilgba, pioneering acting Vice Chancellor/President of the university (January-June 2019) and a serving staff member (a math professor), and it gave him instructions to leave his “official residence within 48 hours” and to leave the campus. According to the letter, the request was “endorsed” by Navy Holdings Limited’s GMD/CEO. It makes sense to inquire as to when GMDs or CEOs of limited liability companies started giving directives to or at federal universities in Nigeria.
Documents that are available reveal that the professor’s wife, who is also a senior staff member of the university, has a separate official apartment assigned to her, for which she pays rent, from the professor’s apartment, for which he also pays rent. Despite this, Professor Paul Omojo Omaji insists on forcibly evicting Professor Shilgba and severing his family from him. Prof. Omaji has been engaging in various illegal activities at the university since his tenure as vice chancellor ended on June 30, 2023, but he has remained on in violation of the University Law and because the federal government has been slow to appoint a vice chancellor. He apparently revealed this at a hastily convened emergency senate/management meeting yesterday, February 6 barely 12 hours after his return from a week-long trip the day before.
In order to put the harm that Professor Omaji has caused and continues to cause the university into perspective, a female professor accused him of “sexual harassment” on January 26, 2024, during a university senate meeting that he organized. Rather than request Prof. Omaji’s recussion for an official, unbiased investigation, he (Prof. Omaji) ordered the professor’s immediate “suspension.” We have heard that the female professor has sued both the university and Prof. Omaji directly, and that she is currently on “suspension.” Prof. Omaji was called to Abuja a few days after this vile occurrence, but he returned a week later (on Monday, January 5) and instigated a new crisis to force another university professor—whose children reside in his own apartment—out of his wife’s residence.
———This is a developing story.
