IMSU: WHEN A UNIVERSITY SITE SWIMS IN POLITICS

Okorocha Western education has become synonymous with modern civilisation, enlightenment and socialisation. This is because the more advanced nations of the world, with their superlative and result-oriented qualitative education had become the unassailable parameters for human transformation, innovations and social change.

Thus , when it was created in February 9, 1976, the old Imo State, which now comprises the present Imo, Abia and parts of Ebonyi States, was inevitably overwhelmed with the ambition to establish a university.

Unquestionably, the overriding goal was not only to meet the academic needs of the teeming school certificate leavers, yearning for admissions into institutions of higher learning, but also to accelerate the pace of growth and development of the young state.

Unfortunately, this lofty plan, because of military despotism and hegemony, did not come to fruition until the emergence of the second Republic when ex-governor Sam Onunaka Mbakwe, established a university, on assumption of office in the early 1980s .

Modeled after the famous prestigious Nebraska University of the USA and anchored on law No 4 of 1981, copiously the university made provisions for five district but coterminous campuses to be located in the then five Senatorial zones of the old Imo State.

Available records indicate that the College of Business Administration and Legal Studies was situated at Ngwa High school, Aba, for the then Aba Senatorial district; College of Engineering and Environmental Studies at Comprehensive Secondary School, Awomama for the Orlu zone now Imo West and College Arts and Social Sciences at Mbaise Secondary School, Aboh Mbaise, for Owerri zone ) (now Imo East) , just as the College of Agriculture and Vetterinary Medicine was to be based at Uzoakoli Methodist College for the erstwhile Umuahia zone. The former Madonna High School Etiti, which has now been converted into Senior Science Secondary School, Ihitte/ Uboma LGA, was the base for Okigwe zone with the College of Medicine and Health Sciences.

Thus the young varsity functioned in consonance with the above structural arrangement till 1985 when the then Brigadier Ike. Nwachukwu, as the military governor of the old Imo State, curiously tinkered with the much applauded American modeled university arrangement. Nwachukwu, who hails from the present Abia State, vide 'the Imo State University Edict of 1985', dramatically relocated the citadel of learning to a single campus at Okigwe. The creation of Abia State in 1991 ceded the university to the new state, pushing the old Imo State to square one without a university.

However, the administrative dexterity of the late Evan Enwerem, as the then governor of the state, saved the day. Enwerem applied his full connections with the powers that be, used the legal instrument, establishing the institution and in 1992, through a legislative enactment,relocated Imo State University to Owerri. It was later moved to its present place still in Owerri urban centre. The Evan Enwerem and the then Mbakwe administrations had tentatively planned to relocate the school to Ogbaku in the Mbaitoli LGA and Aboh Mbaise / Ngor Okpala axis as permanent sites respectively before they were sent packing by the military.

Consequently, the institution had remained in Owerri till date, producing graduates of no mean repute through qualitative sound and resourceful education until the appearance of the present Owelle Rochas Okorocha administration.

Okorocha, a business mogul cum politician, who hails from Ogboko, in the Ideato South LGA of the state, is undoubtedly perceived as another Chief Sam Mbakwe, who has endeared himself to the people through remarkable achievements. However, his recent plan to relocate the university from its present location to his hometown, Ogboko, has not only generated ripples among the people of the state but is seen by those from Owerri zone as a sheer act of ingratitude.

This is because the massive votes of the people in the May 6, 2011 controversial supplementary governorship election provided the magic wand for the eventual actualisation of the Okorocha governorship seat.

Stiring the honests nest, which has set tongues wagging, the governor, through his commissioner for information and strategy, has repeatedly argued that the move was informed by the ardent desire to decongest the Owerri, urban city.

Invariably, Okorocha himself, while presenting the state's 2012 budget to the state legislature, adduced a different reason for the proposed relocation, saying it was consequent upon a directive from the NUC.

However, taking the explanation with a pinch of salt, some concerned indigenes of the state, groups and associations, especially those of Owerri zonal extraction, have vowed to stop the move with the last drop of their blood.

In Owerri North LGA, for instance, a nascent body dubbed, 'Owerri Action Vanguard' in a recent statement jointly signed by the president and secretary general, Messrs Joseph Ikeoha and Ndubuisi Obi respectively, denounced the governor's plan as retrogressive, segregatory and dichotomous, wondering why Owerri zone must be compelled to part with the institution as a state capital.

Similarly the 'Owerri Peoples Assembly' at the end of its one-day crucial council meeting on Sunday, January 8, this year, under the chairmanship of the president general, Dr. Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, reacted to the alleged relocation of the university outside Owerri. Going down memory lane, the Assembly recalled that the institution was established as a multi-campus university with a campus in each of the three zones with the administrative headquarters naturally in Owerri, the state capital.

The Assembly, which has intensified her agitation to retain the university in Owerri, further recalled that the citing of the university headquarters at Aboh Mbaise/Ngor Okpala axis was endorsed by the immediate past governor of the state, following a motion passed by the state House of Assembly on the choice of either citing it at Ogbaku in Mbaitoli LGA or Aboh Mbaise / Ngor Okpala axis.

The medical school is located in Orlu and has taken off already while the engineering school is located in Okigwe but unfortunately has not taken off yet. In the words of the Assembly: 'Owerri people have no objection to the plan of the government to build a new university in Ideato since the state has the largest number of candidates that qualify for university education each year but are averse to shifting the already existing institution outside the zone.'

Consequently, the Assembly argued that the present law, establishing the university in the three zones of the state, should be respected and implemented by moving the permanent site from Owerri to Aboh Mbaise / Ngor Okpala axis and by completing the engineering school and ensuring its immediate take off in Okigwe zone.

Lending her weight to the struggle to retain the university in Owerri, another group, christened 'Group 5-7 DV', in a press statement, entitled 'proposed relocation of Imo State University from Owerri to Ogboko, debunked the argument by the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Dr. Obinna Duruji, that Okorocha had the exclusive right to determine where to locate the university.

Dismissing the argument as undemocratic, which smacks of autocracy, the group noted that while a private person has the preserve and right to site and build a private project, subject to relevant laws anywhere he deems fit, the citing and building of a public project, such as a university is not a personal preserve or right of a public offices, such as a governor, more so when such governor was democratically elected and swore to an oath to defend the constitution and laws enabled by it.

The group also denounced as untenable the postulation by Duruji that most state universities in the South-east of the country were sited in the LGA of the incumbent governor. This, it insisted, was based on political whims or fancies, which are classical cases of abuse of privilege where the law so allows discretion for a governor to misuse his discretion for political gains.

Accordingly, the group believes that the reference to other governors, who sited universities in their home LGAs, was totally extraneous, since Ahmadu Bello University, Obafemi Awolowo University, Universities of Nigeria, Lagos and Benin, were not sited in the home LGAs of their founders.

Government's argument that Ogboko, unlike Owerri, would provide serene environment and create conducive atmosphere for research and studies was also dismissed by the group as unscientific and untenable.

'If serene environment conducive for learning means relocating IMSU to a virgin land in Ogboko, then it is on record that such places exist in Ogbaku in Mbaitoli LGA and in Ngor Okpala and Aboh Mbaise LGAs, noting that these areas had been earmarked for the permanent site of the university.

Whatever betides the question on the lips of Imo indigenes is why must the university be tossed about by successive governments in the state? Will the proposed relocation, if allowed, not open the flood gates for another relocation, especially when an Owerri man mounts the saddle as the governor of the state?

Governor Okorocha, so far, has proved beyond reasonable doubt that he is really on a rescue mission through exemplary performance but should not dabble into issues that might cast aspersion on his rescue train. Already suspicions are rife and thick that the planned relocation was part of the greater design by the Orlu socio cultural group (OPOCA) to build and position Orlu as a future state capital.

With his formidable local and international connection, he might consider building a new university for his Orlu kith and kins and allow a sleeping dog to lie by leaving the existing university to remain where it is currently situated, that is Owerri zone.