Political Economist, Prof. Pat Utomi, says he cannot guarantee that embattled professor Anthony Kila has never made mistakes but to suggest that he has never gone to school is spectacularly unfair to his personality.
Utomi made this known on his verified Facebook page in Lagos on Saturday, saying that Kila is a good man.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that Kila is currently at the centre of a major scandal regarding his academic credentials.
In October, an investigative report published by Premium Times revealed that Kila allegedly falsified all of his higher education qualifications, including his bachelor’s, master’s, doctorate (PhD) degrees, and his rank as a professor.
Utomi, reacting to the online claim, said that there was no evidence to support the claim that Anthony Kila (popularly known as “Prof Kila”) had never gone to school.
“I know Anthony Kila. I became aware of all the trending discussions about his career rather late.
“I have never had any reason to ask about his certificates or letters of appointment, so I cannot claim to have those details.
“However, if he has never gone to school, then those who have must ask for a refund.
“We watched the cyber mob bully Jason Arday, the youngest Black professor ever appointed at Cambridge, to his early death.
“Incidentally, I first met Anthony Kila in the city of Cambridge, England, in 2006, when I was beginning a run for the office of President of Nigeria.”
Utomi said that among those in the mob that sought to lynch Arday were white professors, who had been pardoned for mistakes of a far worse nature.
He said he did not know who might be going after Kila in a country where many people confer academic and non-academic titles on themselves, while the media, through its status-conferring function, elevates them to celebrity status.
He, however, said that this does not seem normal, saying he could empathise because he has had a similar experience.
Utomi said: “Years ago, when a journalist tried to suggest that my stay at Volkswagen Nigeria had something to do with its demise, I offered ₦12 million to anyone who could produce a shred of evidence to support that claim. Fifteen years on, no one has come forward to claim the bounty.
“When I became the first professor of Pan-African (Pan-Atlantic) parent of the Lagos Business School, someone at UNILAG went, “…huh, until he found out that the evaluating team was led by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan.”
“If professors like Adele Jinadu in Political Science and Joe Umo at UNILAG had not met me in graduate school abroad and interacted with my Head of Department, Elinor Lin Ostrom, who went on to become the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, someone may have written something demeaning about my education.” (NAN)
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