Beyond the Reckless Petitions to the PCC on the NIIA: The Case of the Steam Accusing the Kettle

INTERNATIoNAL by Bola A. Akinterinwa

PCC is an acronym for the Public Complaints Commission, which was established in the 1970s to receive complaints from the public against civil and public servants, especially when such complaints are about engagement by public officials in acts of corruption, favoritism, nepotism, incompetence., use of false documents in the application of civil service rules. In this regard, the PCC is to investigate only the complaints but cannot enforce its decisions or recommendations. It is also not empowered to reverse or probe the decisions and actions of courts, presidents or governors, ministers, commissioners, judges or such government officials in top sensitive political positions. Put differently, the decisions and recommendations of the PCC are, at best, left for Government to take final decision on them. One major rationale for this is the need to ensure state security which procedurally requires limiting ‘the access of the ombudsman to vital records, information and documents.’

NIIA means the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, which was established in 1961 and generally referred to as Africa’s foremost foreign policy think tank, but which its very patriotic founders considered as a World Institute in Africa, an African Institute in Nigeria, and ultimately a Nigerian Institute in Lagos, Nigeria. This is one major rationale for the non-relocation of the institute to Abuja under the presidency of President Olusegun Obasanjo.

The case of the steam accusing the kettle was necessarily raised in a report on 9th August 2021 by The Sun News, which said that it got a copy of a petition from a member of staff of the NIIA and that the petition was addressed to the Commissioner of the PCC. From the report of The Sun News, there are two deductive observations: that the petitioner is Dr. Fred Aja Agwu who wanted to be the Director General of the NIIA, but when a better candidate in the person of Professor Eghosa Osaghae was appointed the Director General and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Agwu then struggled to be the Director of Research and Studies in the Institute. Besides, Dr. Agwu saw in Dr. Efem Ubi, the current acting Director of the Department, who acted the position of the Director General of the NIIA at the time of the crisis, as junior to him and should not have been appointed at all as head of the Research Department.

This issue has been raised several times in the past, but Dr. Fred Agwu always preferred to misinform the press and the government on the matter. Let me restate here for the umpteenth time that Dr. Agwu is, at best, a GCP (Governing Council-sponsored Professor) and not an NIIA-appointed Professor. By implication, his professorial claims, not to mention his being the most senior academic at the institute before the retirement of Professor Bukar Bukarambe, are not tenable. There is, therefore, the need to go beyond the reckless petitions sent to the PCC.

Recklessness of the Petitions

Dr. Frederick Aja Agwu’s petitions are very reckless in conception, very fraudulent in design, provocative in content, and unfortunately most misleading and myopic in strategic objective. Put differently, what does Dr. Agwu want to put to the Nigerian public with his petitions? Is it that he was the only and most senior member of staff? Is it that he was qualified to be the Director General of the NIIA or that it is only professorial status that is required for eligibility? Who, of all his advisors in the Administration Department of the NIIA, got him confused with such wrong information? Who says that the NIIA is only functionally guided by Public Service Rules? Who also says that Dr. Efem Ubi is not qualified to head the Research Department and Studies in an acting capacity? Who really says that the introduction of the position of a Director in the Office of the Director General of the NIIA is fraudulent or not governmentally approved?

When I was Director-General of the NIIA, from 16th November 2010 to 30th November 2015, the Administration Department was the epicentre of acts of serious misconduct and fraudulent activities, especially with Ms. Agatha Ude as Director of Administration and Finance and General Ike Nwachukwu as Chairman of the Governing Council, which consciously laid the foundation for the various problems of indiscipline with which the incumbent Director General is now faced. General Ike Nwachukwu, coupled with the very subjective and poor advice given by Ambassador Pius Ayewoh who acted on his behalf for about ten months when General Nwachukwu was on medical vacation abroad, forced me to ensure the promotion of Dr. Agwu contrary to the extant rules that the same Dr. Agwu now wants respected. Dr. Agwu was frequently given classified information by the Director and Deputy Director of Administration which was unconsciously revealed in Dr. Agwu and Dr. Charles Dokubo’s petitions sent to me. When I left office, I took them to court and won my case against them as they had to apologise to me.

Without whiffs of doubt, there are other more critical questions to address here, but our intention is essentially to provide explicative truths about the petitions, not to lay emphasis on the person of Dr. Agwu. Our emphasis will be on the various allegations by Dr. Agwu in order to prevent the distortion of the truth for posterity and also to stop the attempt by Dr. Agwu to project a bad and wrong image for the NIIA in its current activities competently being organized by its Management to celebrate the NIIA at 60 in December 2021.

First, The Sun News reported that Dr. Agwu is ‘appealing that the succession process in the civil service be upheld. The consequence of all these is that there is now practically no seniority in the NIIA. There is now complete lawlessness in the institute. Checking the unruliness and the breach of rules in the NIIA is very important, because, if things continue to go this way, unwholesome precedents would be institutionalized. The result, if the ill practices are not checked, would not be good for the institute and the Civil Service.’

This allegation is the most brutal in character. What does ‘no seniority in the NIIA’ mean in practical terms. I am very conversant with the NIIA as I go there for frequent research. One truth is that no one has any jot of respect for him because of his own attitude. In this column on 7 June 2020, which was entitled ‘Truths about Untruths,’ I noted that many members of staff of the NIIA said they would prefer the use of the NIIA as a COVID-19 quarantine centre than have it as a research institution under Dr Aja Agwu as Director General. This observation speaks volumes.

Respect begets respect at various levels of inter-personal relationships and particularly at the official levels. As at today, I can make bold that Professor Eghosa Osaghae is fostering healthy horizontal relations amongst all members of staff at the inter-personal level while also insisting on vertical instructional relationship in the conduct and management of the official businesses of the institute. There is no iota of truth in the allegation of complete lawlessness or lack of respect for seniority in the NIIA. It is Dr Agwu that is suffering from lack of self-respect. Who really is Dr. Agwu senior to in the Institute?

Dr. Agwu also said if ‘things continue to go this way, unwholesome precedents would be institutionalized.’ The truth is that he is the very first person to lay the unwholesome precedent that General Ike Nwachukwu, Alhaji Tanko Yakassai, Ambassador Pius Ayewoh, and even Professor Akin Oyebode, a scholar of national repute and international standing for that matter, et al, tried to institutionalise. It is on record that Dr Agwu was Associate Research Professor for only two years when he began writing protest letters against me to compel his promotion into the substantive grade of a professor contrary to extant regulations.

He came up with an old regulation which stipulated ‘minimum of two years’ on the grade of an Associate Professor before eligibility to be considered for elevation into the professorial cadre. This regulation was thrown into the dustbin of history ever before he was recruited into the NIIA and also following the decision of the NIIA Management to adopt the academic regulations of the University of Lagos, but with more stricter conditions. It was considered that the academic colleagues in the University were saddled with more teaching responsibilities, which was not the case with the occasional lectures being given by the NIIA Fellows. Consequently, rather than the 28 academic points or 33 points required for prima farcie eligibility for consideration for promotion to the grade of associate and substantive professor in the University, the NIIA Fellows were required to have 48 and 65 points respectively for the two professorial cadres. In the same vein, rather than the requirement of two years minimum, it was changed to three years minimum to be eligible for promotion from the position of an Associate to that of a substantive professor of the NIIA.

The Ike Nwachukwu Governing Council blackmailed me, but I resisted. The truth was that, even when the requirement was two years, it was not automatic, because of the qualifying adjective, ‘minimum.’ Besides, evaluation of eligibility was also predicated on academic publications, behaviour, contributions to national development efforts, and, on qualitative contributions to existing knowledge, rather than on quantitative number of publications.

Two relevant observations ought to be made at this juncture before providing a background truth analysis of Dr Agwu’s petitions. The first is that he had a critical problem with Professor Osita Eze when he was the Director General of the Institute (2006-15th November 2010). The problem was that Professor Eze did not accept Dr. Agwu’s claim that he was an international law scholar, and perhaps most disturbingly, Professor Eze frowned at Dr Agwu’s use of an existing book title, ‘World Peace Through World Law,’ written by Louis B. Sohn and Grenville Clark, and first published in 1958. It is a popular book because it advocated a review of the UN Charter.

In the eyes of Professor Eze, an acknowledged international scholar, this was partly an intellectual theft and therefore a copyright infringement. Professor Eze never had any warm relationship with him because of this. As if this was not enough, there was also another controversy: how Dr Agwu used a MILD (Master in International Law and Diplomacy) qualification to pursue a doctoral academic programme in the University of Lagos. MILD is a professional qualification. It is not academic. The animosity vis-à-vis Dr. Agwu at the NIIA is largely derived from the foregoing. If there is any lawlessness in the NIIA, it cannot but begin clearly at the level of the petitioner. The background truth not only lends further credence to this observation, but also points to how a Governing Council chaired by General Ike Nwachukwu which tried to fast track his promotion, ended up permanently destroying him. Excessive ethnic politics does not pay. I predicted the destruction of the NIIA and told General Ike Nwachukwu as Chairman of Governing Council in black and white. The Council fraudulently got professorial appointments for people who should have been objectively assessed but, in the mania of manu militari, were pronounced professors without one of them meeting the requirement of two points.

The Background Truths

As reported by The Sun News, ‘Professor Agwu complained that the substantive DG, Prof. Osaghae, had equally ignored him as a full-fledged professor, and even went ahead to recognize an Assistant Director on Grade Level 13, as the Acting Director of Research, against Civil Service Rules and Regulations, which prescribe seniority in such appointments.’ This allegation is most unfortunate. First, promotion in the Research Depart is not governed by civil service regulations but by the academic community rules. Second, it is wrong for Dr. Agwu to see himself as a full-fledged professor at the NIIA, because he is certainly not, and if we are to consider him as one, it can only be as one of the pioneer Governing Council Professors (GCP). The other pioneer Governing Council Professor is Dr. Charles Dokubo. The two of them were not qualified to have been considered for NIIA Professorship for reasons not far-fetched.

The then Director of Research and Studies, Professor Ogaba Danjuma Oche, revealed the names of the professorial assessors of both Dr. Dokubo and Dr Agwu to them, which should not be. I complained in black and white, but to no avail, to the Ike Nwachukwu-led Governing Council. And true enough, rather than sanctioning anyone, the Council kept quiet, because of its grudges against me, particularly because of my insistence on the fact that professorship is neither a chieftaincy title nor a commodity that has to be negotiated in the markets or on the altar of bargaining. The title of a professor, and for that matter, Academic Professor, is always earned in international academic practice. The title is not honorary and not inheritable.

Even when it is wrongly conferred, no such professor is professor if he is not able to profess creatively. Dr Agwu could have earned the normal NIIA professorial appointment had there been non-intervention of the Governing Council members in the evaluation processes. Every Member of Council became another Director General and Chief Executive of the NIIA, a critical situation that I never accepted.

And also, true enough, the Governing Council, during one of its meetings, compelled me, by dictating the contents, to write a letter to the assessors, claiming that the conditions I stipulated in my earlier letter to them should be disregarded. Additionally, one Member of Council was telephoning to one of the assessors. When I raised this issue in the meeting of the Council, the member said he only telephoned once to one of the assessors. What was the purpose of telephoning?

In this regard, going by NIIA rules, the maximum point obtainable to be pronounced a Professor of the NIIA is three if one full point is given by every assessor. There are always three different assessors. The minimum point obtainable is two to qualify for professorship. In fact, an assessor is required to state whether a candidate has marginally or is fully qualified to be a professor of the NIIA. When the evaluation is that of an unreserved qualification, the full mark is one point, but when evaluation is marginal pass, the point is half.

In the very case of Dr. Agwu, he managed to have the required two points from three assessments, unlike the case with Dr. Dokubo who had one and a half point and was still promoted. NIIA promotion is not done based on how many assessors favour elevation of a candidate, but what point is given by such assessors. The Ike Nwachukwu school of thought jettisoned this NIIA tradition, and by so doing, sought to influence professorial assessments, and laid a foundation for the bastardization of the NIIA academic standard. On this is basis, Dr. Agwu is not an NIIA Professor, but a Governing Council-Assisted professor, and therefore cannot lay any legitimate claim to seniority over other academics that went through the intellectual rigours of evaluation. When discussing the issue of being a full-fledged professor at the NIIA, that should always be put in context.

It is relevant to also note that the Ike Nwachukwu-led Council extended the bastardisation of the NIIA to reversal of the execution of Government’s Monetisation Policy that I ensured in my capacity as Director General. The truth as at today is that many members of staff that have left the services of the institute are still illegally occupying official quarters after more than two years, as it is the case with Professor Bukarambe in particular. Even one of them has the effrontery to seek court injunction on her accommodation. All these problems originated from every attempt by the Governing Council to protect Dr. Fred Agwu who complained along with others on his inability to pay the required official rent as determined by government’s monetization policy.

Another point is the allegation that ‘the NIIA Act only recognizes three directors, administration and finance; research and studies, and then library services and documentation; nothing else.’ Dr Agwu rightly observed that ‘the talk about the director of special duties would only be possible if the NIIA Act is amended and the additional director reflected. This has not happened.’ He is right only to the extent that the NIIA was established by an Act of Parliament and only a parliamentary amendment can normally enable a change in status. But here are the other relevant hard facts: without any change in the provisions of the Act, Professor (Mrs) Joy Ogwu established an additional division into the Research Department when she was Director General. Secondly, what was provided for in the Act was Research Department. It was under Professor Rafiu Ayo Akindele that ‘and Studies’ was included to become ‘Department of Research and Studies.’

Within the context of the need to promote a better understanding of international relations, I initiated a programme on teaching of international diplomatic practice, in order to translate diplomatic theories into practice and for the NIIA to be issuing Certificates and Diplomas. Efforts at getting a parliamentary amendment to the NIIA Act were taken. I am glad that the matter had been taken up in the National Assembly now. This is to suggest that many things can be done to bring about development while the question of amendment to the NIIA Act remains.

But on the specific issue of ‘Director of Special Duties,’ I authoritatively state here that the designation was approved by Government, regardless of the NIIA Act. What was initially proposed to Government for approval was ‘Director of International Cooperation.’ The intention was also to create a special department to be directly in charge of NIIA’s international partnership programmes, fund raising to assist teaching and research activities, and make the NIIA second to none in Africa and one of the leading centres of research on international relations in the whole world. The position of a Director of International Cooperation was prompted by the factor of increased number of cooperation programmes. Before I took over as Director General of the Institute, there were only six international partners with which the NIIA was relating. By the end of 2013, the number has increased to eleven. In fact, it was also for this reason that I initiated the re-construction of the existing DG Building to accommodate a modern multipurpose research hall, which was completed but not furnished before I left because of the magouilles of the then Permanent Secretary, Ambassador Bulus Lolo, who was then under apparent influence of Ambassador Pius Ayewoh. And true and without gainsaying, Ambassador Ayewoh created most, if not all, problems we are all talking about for General Ike Nwachukwu, as he was the one who stood in for him when he was not around. And most unfortunately, he wrongly believed in their allegations.

What is particularly interesting about the issue of ‘Director of International Cooperation’ is that those who were against the proposal and effort to establish the position, were precisely the very people struggling to occupy the position when it was established. The Office of the Civil Service of the Federation changed the name to ‘Director of Special Duties’ and instructed that the Director of Special Duties should be under the Office of the Director General and not to exist as a separate department, until there is an amendment. The suggestion was commended. This means that the incumbent Director General can appoint a Director of Special Duties, following due process, in his Office to help him manage the Institute’s foreign academic affairs. The NIIA was never conceived to be an intellectual consumer but one that is required to provide intellectual leadership in the understanding of international questions. Consequently, Dr. Agwu should refrain from presenting what is wrong as facts or presenting facts as untruths. The records are there for anyone to see.

One fundamental fact that is often publicly not known, and therefore often neglected, is the attitudinal disposition of Dr Agwu who wrongly believes that he can only rise or be promoted unless he first destroys others. This is precisely the malady from which he is intellectually suffering. It is also for this reason that he is not and can never be qualified to occupy any public office, particularly at the NIIA. Dr. Agwu cannot be quick in forgetting how his colleagues in the Research Department protested against him under Professor Bukar Bukarambe and passing a vote of no confidence on him. He should not quickly forget why he was removed as Director of Research and Studies and was replaced by Dr. Efem Ubi. He must also remember that the records of all these developments are before the incumbent Director General and who is quite sagacious enough to know how to run an institution like the NIIA, after his successful stay as Vice Chancellor for more than ten years in a recognized reputable university. Like water, a professor must always find his or her level. The full-fledged professorship of Dr. Agwu should not be allowed to taint that of Professor Osaghae.

It is nothing more than a demonstration of ignorance to suggest that ‘a level 13 officer cannot head the research department when there is a full-fledged professor.’ In the universities from which NIIA’s academic tradition is borrowed, headship of departments can be rotated and the most junior person in the continuum of professors can head the department. When Dr. George Obiozor was appointed the Director General of the NIIA, he was not yet a professor and he was very junior to Professors Rafiu Ayo Akindele and Adekunle Ajala. When Mrs. Joy Uche Ogwu was similarly appointed the Director General of the NIIA, Professor Bassey E. Ate was senior to her. These facts necessarily neutralize the argument of a junior colleague heading the Research and Studies Department. Thus, all the allegations in Dr. Agwu’s petition are myopic and ridiculous.

When Professor Bukarambe expected to be re-appointed, but to no avail, and there was the need to appoint the most senior director at the institute, by virtue of the Civil Service Rules, Dr. Agwu was induced into error by Ms. Bridget Otobo and others that he was the most senior. They actually presented Dr. Agwu to an assembly of staff as the new Director General, while Professor Bukarambe was yet to officially hand over. Ms. Otobo’s action was a manifestation of lawlessness and Dr. Agwu was the first beneficiary from the lawlessness.

They wrongly believed that the NIIA was only guided by Civil Service Rules. The truth is that Civil Service Rules generally apply to non-academic staff, while they are tangentially applicable to the academic staff. It is what obtains in the universities that applies to the members of the academic staff in the Research Department of the NIIA. In this regard, how do we explain the fact that, while Professor Bukarambe was still in office, Otobo and her cohorts declared Dr Agwu as Acting Director General, contrary to extant rules and regulations, and the same Dr. Agwu is now complaining about lawlessness? I complained publicly to the Foreign Ministry that, under no circumstance should he be considered for the position of a Director General because of his bad demeanour.

And true enough again, there is currently a police investigation at the Bar Beach Police Station in which Dr. Agwu is involved. Dr. Agwu alleged in 2015 that I sent hired assassins to kill him. He stated this in his petition to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which he passed through my office as the then Director General and copied to the Bar Beach Police. Immediately I forwarded his petition to the Foreign Ministry, I reported myself to the police station for arrest and investigation. The police refused to put me in custody, arguing that the complainant should be available.

In short, nothing criminal could be established against me. Efforts were made to suppress any further investigation, but I vehemently resisted the suppression, and the matter is still under investigation since 2015. The owner of the MTN number purportedly used by the assailants acting under my instruction is yet to be identified. This is a case of criminal defamation of character that will be under prosecution. Dr. Agwu will be duly served when the Court returns from its vacation as from next week, as the police has not been able to establish my linkage to his allegation. And most interestingly too, it is noteworthy that I have won four of the six cases against people who made frivolous allegations against me at the Institute, including Dr. Agwu and Dokubo. The last two cases to be prosecuted include that of the NIIA Management and the criminal case of Dr. Agwu.

Consequently, the PCC should thread very carefully in dealing with the petitions from Dr. Fred Aja Agwu. He is not an NIIA-appointed professor but an ethnically motivated and appointed professor by the Ike Nwachukwu-led Governing Council. Any investigation by the PCC should begin with the records of the Governing Council, because it is a special case of the steam accusing the kettle. His claim of status of a full-fledged professor is founded on a fraudulent foundation. Claiming seniority when he has a questionable professorial assessment and having the effrontery to be petitioning is self-killing, especially that the PCC cannot implement its own decisions. It is the NIIA management and Government that are being accused that will still be required to implement the recommendations to be made by the PCC. More important, Dr. Agwu must learn how not to destroy others in order to climb the ladder. He prevented the promotion of many others under frivolous pretexts and the same people simply waited for him where he never expected. This is a good case of what goes round coming around. He should therefore make haste slowly in his business of petitioning