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Thursday,Dec 24,2009
Dim Ojukwu and Peter Obi’s Re-election Campaign
Former Biafran leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, has reportedly vowed to return Peter Obi to the Government ....
By Jideofor Adibe
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Thursday,Dec 17,2009
Don’t Cry for Me, Nigeria
It must have been around 1984 that Wole Soyinka declared his generation, ‘the wasted generation’. The 1....
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Thursday,Dec 10,2009
A Nation in Coma: Beyond Constitutional Provisions
Nigeria is once again at one of those junctures where tripping over the precipice cannot be ruled out. At issue is ....
By Jideofor Adibe
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Thursday,Dec 03,2009
Uba’s Honorary Doctorate: Why UniZik Was Right
The recent award by Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UniZik), of an honorary Doctor of Public Administration (DPA), to An....
By Jideofor Adibe
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Thursday,Nov 26,2009
Sanusi: A Radical in a Conservative Job?
Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is a very brilliant man. He writes the English language with remarkable authority, and e....
By Jideofor Adibe
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Thursday,Nov 19,2009
Anambra State Needs Liberation
Anambra state has been in the news, often for the wrong reason, for much of the 4th Republic. It has in many ways b....
By Jideofor Adibe
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Thursday,Nov 12,2009
Heroes, Democracy, and the ‘PhD’ syndrome
A nation that does not honour its heroes is not worth dying for –so goes the cliché. This appear....
By Jideofor Adibe
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Thursday,Aug 06,2009
Are We Trying to Pull Down Barrack Obama?
Since Barrack Obama announced a visit to Africa, his relationship with Nigerian Internet bloggers seems to have sou....
By Jideofor Adibe
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Uba’s Honorary Doctorate: Why UniZik Was Right
By:
Jideofor Adibe
pcjadibe@yahoo.com
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The recent award by Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UniZik), of an honorary Doctor of Public Administration (DPA), to Andy Uba, during its eighth convocation on November 21, 2009, generated some controversies. While some hailed it as a worthy appreciation of Uba’s donation of a communication centre, said to be worth over N50m, to the university, others condemned it as being utterly in bad taste. Former Governor of Anambra state, Dr Chinwoke Mbadinuju, was quoted as calling the award ‘a reward for evil’. Some also argued that to award an honorary doctorate to someone who is thought not to have a proven bachelor’s degree cheapens the value of such an honour. Yet others argue that suspicions that Uba had been one of the brains behind the recent politics of infamy in Anambra state disqualify him from being honoured by any credible institution in the state. I beg to disagree.
One, an honorary degree - also known as degree honoris causa – (Latin: 'for the sake of the honour') could be conferred on any one for a variety of reasons. It could be conferred on someone who is already academically distinguished in the field or on a public figure or a philanthropist who has been a pillar of support to the university or whom the university is wooing. An honorary doctorate could be conferred even on a non-person. For instance in 1996 Southampton College at Long Island University, USA, (now a campus of SUNY Stony Brook) awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Amphibious Letters to the Muppet, Kermit the Frog – one of the puppeteers in Jim Henson’s famous Muppet creations. Though Southampton College claimed the award was in recognition of the Muppet’s efforts in the area of environmentalism, some people suspected it was deliberately aimed at attracting media attention. An institution could also award or deny an honorary degree to someone to make a point. For instance in 1985, as a deliberate snub, the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, voted to refuse the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher an honorary degree in protest against her cuts in funding for higher education. The award had previously been given to all Prime Ministers who had been educated at Oxford.
Two, while there are legitimate concerns about Andy Uba’s sources of wealth, and his politics, (or what we suspect it to be since he prefers to operate from behind the scenes), for as long as he has not been convicted of any crime in the country, and his donations are for good causes, they should be accepted and appreciated. I would even want to see the moneybags and godfathers encouraged to build and maintain structures in our schools, which will be named after them.
A close scrutiny of many of the world’s famous philanthropists will reveal that they are not necessarily saints. The French novelist Honoré de Balzac in fact tells us that behind every great fortune lies a hidden great crime. Consider George Soros, regarded as one of the world’s greatest philanthropists. Many people continue to suspect a dark side to Soros partly because like Andy Uba, he operates clandestinely, far from the spotlight enjoyed by most of his fellow billionaires. In 1995, Soros shocked many people by openly disapproving of his father’s reluctance to die, despite being gravely ill. Soros was quoted as saying: "My father unfortunately wanted to live ... and I was kind of disappointed in him.... I wrote him off." In 1992, Soros earned $1 billion by selling short the pound sterling, forcing Britain to bail out of the European Monetary System. In 1997, Soros and other speculators triggered the Southeast Asian currency collapse that caused the biggest one-day drop in the history of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Despite these, Soros has received honorary degrees from the New School for Social Research in New York City, the University of Oxford, the Budapest University of Economics, and Yale University. In 1995, the University of Bologna, Italy, awarded him its highest honour, the Laurea Honoris Causa, in recognition of his efforts to promote open societies throughout the world.
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Andy Uba
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