NOW "in my kitchen" with ABIMBOLA OMOLADE X

UKODO RECIPE




Ukodo is typical spicy traditional breakfast native to the Urhobo tribe of delta state in the southern part of Nigeria. It is simply a pepper soup dish which consists of unripe plantain and yam (sometimes cooked with lemon grass and potash), and is believed to be the perfect companion on a wet cold day. The Itsekiris, also of the Niger Delta call their version Epuru while the igbo version is known as Ji mmiri Oku. When preparing ukodo, i usually prefer the use of goat Goat meat or dried fish because it gives it a nice native taste and smell unlike chicken and cow meat. It's really simple to make as i'm about to show you below.

Ingredients

•3 medium sized plantain "Unripe"

•4 Large Slices yam

•1 kg Goat meat (with intestine & liver)

•2 cooking spoons Palm oil

•1 small bunch lemon grass/ scent leaves

•2 tbsp. crayfish/ dry prawns

•1 teaspoon dried pepper

•2 seeds "Iwo/Erhe (itshekiri) - Dry roast and set aside

•1 seed Gbafilo

•2 Uda Uwentia “Negro pepper” (Simply Uda or Enge) - Remove the seeds & discard

•1 tsp. Ataiko

•1 tbsp Irugege

•2 Seasoning cubes

•1/2 teaspoon Native salt

Directions

Step 1: Wash the goat meat thoroughly, place in a pot and sprinkle a tsp. of salt and cook for about 15 minutes on low heat. Set aside to later use.

Step 2: Peel the yam and cut into two halves then immerse in a bowl of water and rinse. Peel and cut the plantain into three pieces then - set aside. 

Step 3: Place all the local spices (Iwo/Erhe (itshekiri), Gbafilo, Ataiko, Irugege) in the dry part of the blender and grind for a few minutes. 

Step 4: Add some water to the pot containing goat meat. Place on the burner and allow to boil for about 5 minutes. Add 1-2 tbsp. of the ground spices, uda, crayfish, pepper and crushed seasoning. Stir and taste the soup. Leave to cook further till you start to perceive the aroma

Step 5: Add plantain and yam. Add the lemon grass bunch then reduce the heat and allow the ukodo to cook for about 15 minutes. Discard the lemon grass bunch after this. 

Step 6: Transfer the Yam and plantain into a dish, then pour the liquid into another plate. Pour red palm oil into a small clay bowl and serve. The palm oil can also be mixed with the ukodo liquid and used to eat the yam and plantain or the yam/plantain could be dipped in the oil and eaten while the ukodo liquid is sipped like pepper soup. 

ABIMBOLA OMOLADE
+2348188866735
abimbolaomolade9@gmail.com
www.ladesimi.blogspot.com.ng

HOW ABSENCE OF RELIABLE DATA STALLS GOVT. JOB CREATION EFFORTS- MICHAEL OCHE

It is true that more than 80 per cents of job vacancies in Nigeria are not advertised. The consequence is that most job seekers do not have access to information on available job vacancies, thereby making it difficult for them to apply for such jobs.

Last December, the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) said in compliance with the third mandate of the Directorate which requires it “to obtain and maintain a data bank on employment and vacancies in the country with a view to acting as a clearing house to link job seekers with vacancies in collaboration with other government agencies,” it is set to commence online registration of unemployed persons in the country.

However, speaking recently at the All Progressives Congress (APC) national headquarters in Abuja, Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr. James Ocholi (SAN) said that there is still no reliable statistics on unemployed youths in the country.

Experts say the unavailability of such data makes it difficult for both employers and employee to have reliable access to labour market information.

In the United Kingdom (UK) for instance, a new government website named Universal Jobmatch has recently been launched whereby jobseekers can search for employment and employers can upload and manage their own vacancies whilst searching for prospective employees.

The UK government also has Jobcentre Plus an executive agency of the Department for Work and Pensions. The agency provided services primarily to those attempting to find employment and to those requiring the issuing of a financial provision due to, in the first case lack of employment, of an allowance to assist with the living costs and expenditure intrinsic to the effort to achieve employment, or in all other cases the provision of social-security benefit as the result of a person without an income from employment due to illness-incapacity including drug addiction. The organisation acts from within the government’s agenda for community and social welfare. Job vacancies advertised for employers within each of the public offices use a computer system called the Labour Market System (LMS).

A visit to the job portal on the NDE website as at Saturday, 23 January 2016 showed the following message, “WE ARE UNDER CONSTRUCTION. We are currently doing some enhancement to our site. Stay tuned!”The directorate however runs a vibrant website where those seeking to be trained for various vocational skills can register online.

But there is need for government to empower the agency to achieve its mandate of obtaining and maintaining a Data Bank on employment and vacancies in the country.

According to Davide Yusuf, the CEO of Career Intelligence, Nigeria urgently needs to create a job centre runned by the government as is done in other developed countries.

He said, “There is no structural platform in Nigeria. Nigeria needs job centres. We don’t have job centres in Nigeria. Job centres run by the government and not by the private sector. The private sector will always do things in a way that they can make profit. But the government needs to attend to this. The government needs a dedicated job centre. The job centre is not about buildings. It is about system, it is about technology. for instance, if you have a credible job centre, it means somebody in Enugu state can see the vacancy in Abuja because the job centre technology will provide the poll factor for the private sector to advertise their jobs on that site. So the technology on this site, will also help the job seeker to gain access to this jobs. When you do that, the following will happen, the technology will assist the job seeker to know what job exist, it will remove the barrier of lack of access to information.”

During a recent courtesy visit to the minister of labour and employment, Edo State governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole lamented the absence of job centres in the country.

In his words “This ministry in the past years was noted for registration and placement of unemployed Nigerians in various job centres across the country thereby generating reliable data of unemployed youths as well as carry out regular trade test, do proper grading of skilled and semi-skilled and produce competent man-power through vocational training without necessarily attending higher institution.

“I believe sir that this is one area that we have neglected over the years and giving the commitment of the present administration to job creation we need to re-establish those units in all the state of the federation possibly in every Local Government Area for people who are qualified and willing to work to register”.






source: Leadership News

LEPROSY: Nigerians still living in ignorance of its causes and symptoms- Kuni Tyessi

Another World Leprosy Day has come and gone and the disease is still spreading with 3,000 new cases been reported annually in Nigeria, especially with the involvement of child-related cases. KUNI TYESSI in this report highlights the causes, symptoms, treatment as well as preventive measures as many still live in ignorance of it.

Known as Hansen’s Disease, leprosy is caused by a type of bacteria otherwise known as mycobacterium leprae and is known to multiply very slowly. Its incubation period is said to be between 5 years while symptoms can take 20 years to appear  and it mainly affects the skin and peripheral nerves.

Throughout its history, leprosy has been feared and misunderstood with several mythical and cultural undertone attached to it. For a long time, it was thought to be a hereditary disease, a curse, or a punishment from God as there are stories in the Bible that suggests this.

Before and even after the discovery of its biological cause, leprosy patients were stigmatized and shunned. For example, in Europe, historical fact records that during the Middle Ages, its sufferers had to wear special clothing and ring bells to warn others that they were close, and even walk on a particular side of the road, depending on the direction of the wind. Even in modern times, its treatment has often occured in seperate hospitals and live-in colonies called leprosariums because of the stigma of the disease.

Contrary to the social stigma, it is not highly contagious, and does not cause body parts to fall off. It is not also caused by witchcraft, neither are the suffers witches or wizards. In fact, 95% of the world’s population is naturally immune to the disease and once diagnosed, a person is easily cured.

It is not highly infectious and transmission from human to human is through respiratory droplets from the nose and mouth, during close and frequent contacts with untreated cases. It’s also possible to get the bacteria from armadillo and other non-human primates.

Leprosy, if left untreated is capable of causing damage to the nerves, limbs, skin and eyes as seen in most patients. The deformities in the fingers and toes occure due to cartilage being absorbed back into the body and they are not leprosy but the aftermath of late diagnosis and treatment and this can happen in the case of other diseases.

This damage gives the patient decreased feeling in the areas affected. The decreased feeling can leave the patient unaware that they have injured themselves and they can get secondary infections. These infections result in the loss of body tissues.

The symptoms are wide and can start out mild and progress into presentations that are the subject of misconceptions and cultural beliefs. The hallmark signs of leprosy are hypesthesia, which is an abnormally weak sense of pain, cold, heat, or touch, skin lesions, and peripheral neuropathy.

The first visible indication that someone has leprosy usually has to do with the skin. Things like painless skin patches (lesions) that are not itchy begin popping up. They tend to be circular with a dry scaly centre. These usually first present themselves on the buttocks, face, and the surfaces of limbs. This is because the bacteria prefer cooler zones of the body. In fact, the organisms involved grow best at 80-86 degrees Fahrenheit.

As the disease progresses, the skin’s features like sweat glands and hair follicles are destroyed. Further, the nerves become enlarged and can become quite painful. The patient loses their ability to “feel” and they can injure themselves easily. These injuries lead to muscle atrophy, weakness, and infections. This can cause “foot drop” or clawed hands. Ulcers can also form on the hands and feet.

As the face becomes involved, a person can begin to sound hoarse, loose their eyebrows, and eyelashes. Their nasal cavities may collapse because of the breakdown in the septum. When the eyes become involved in the process, the person can get glaucoma or keratitis. The facial skin can also become thickened and corrugated. When it remains untreated, the progressive impairment becomes permanent damage to the skin, nerves, limbs and eyes. Early diagnosis and treatment with multidrug therapy (MDT) still remains the key elements in eliminating the disease as a public health concern.

In 1991, WHO passed a resolution that would eliminate leprosy as a problem by the year 2000 (the definition of a problem meaning less than 1 case per 10,000 people). Due to the advances in drug treatments and the use of multi-drug therapies, WHO did accomplish their goal. In 1995, they began offering free therapies to any patient in the world who contracted the disease. Nigeria still records about 3000 cases annually and more disturbing are cases of children who have been affected by the disease, thereby leaving experts in the field of medicine and other stakeholders to declare that on no account must children be allowed to suffer such.

A person is also not contagious after a few weeks of the treatment. This, combined with many surgical options that decrease a person’s deterioration and increase their nerve function, give leper colonies everywhere something to party over.

The national director of The Leprosy Mission, Nigeria, Dr Moses Onoh, further creates awareness about the disease so that people can understand it’s signs, symptoms, prevention as well as treatment, based on the standard of the World Health Organisation, WHO.

He said referring to victims of the disease as lepers is derogatory and as such, the proper way to define them is “ persons affected by leprosy” as it is a disease that can affect anyone and therefore called for good general hygiene as the disease is caused by germs that reside and breed in dirty environments.

“They are not lepers but persons affected by leprosy. The reason why the ailment still persists is because most people do not know the signs and symptoms and so do not come out early enough for treatment. “

“The deformities you see on persons affected by leprosy is a result of late treatment but is not leprosy in itself. Most of them do not come for treatment until they are faced with the deformities. It’s just a deformity which can also occur in other ailments.

It is not contagious and can be treated and the treatment is free.”

“We always advise that once a patch is discovered on the skin, such persons should go for test because it can be a sign of leprosy. The patches do not often itch and are not painful. However, that a patch has been seen on the skin doesn’t mean it is leprosy until a test has been done and proven otherwise.”

He said there are wonder drugs that care cure the disease and called on medical doctors to always refer pregnant women for test whenever a patch has been noticed on their bodies during check-up as loss of fingers is not a parameter to diagnosing the disease.

He revealed that there are four organisations in Nigeria which oversee leprosy- related diseases and are committed to its total eradication. They are based in Enugu, Enugu state, Jos, in Plateau state, Ibadan in Oyo state and Abuja the federal capital territory which are situated in the south-east, south-west, north-central and the nation’s capital respectively.









source: Leadership News

NOW THAT WE ARE THINKING DEVELOPMENT....

The Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) would be taking off July 1, 2016. This is a most welcome development in our polity. It indicates the willingness of the federal government to forge ahead with policies and programmes that are geared towards impacting meaningfully on the life of the people even if those programmes were not conceived by it.

The Development Bank of Nigeria is an initiative of the previous administration established in partnership with the World Bank Group/ International Finance Corporation with an initial $500million capital to address issues of financial inclusion and accessibility.     The DBN, according to the project manager of the Nigerian infrastructure project, Mr. Ubong Awah, is a purely wholesale bank that will leverage the retail distribution channels of existing commercial banks and development finance institutions in the country. The Bank will also employ the on-lending business model in its operations, and together with the Nigeria Collateral Registry (NCR) – a project of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) – will address the challenges of access to finance and collateral.

Nigeria’s Bank of Industry is also a development bank that is designed to address, to a large extent, the issue of access to finance and financial inclusion in order to boost the operations of MSMEs in the country. The extent to which the Bank of Industry has achieved this mandate is not particularly commendable. The BoI has failed the MSME sector for reasons known only to it. This is why we are more than a little concerned about the DBN. We all know that MSMEs are a vital organ in the development and growth of any economic system that intends to sustain itself and the society dependent on it. The MSMEs provide the grease required to keep the industrialization pursuit of the economy on a desirable momentum.

This Development Bank must not go in the way of others before it, we have come a long way and it is time for all agencies and institutions including players in the development field to pull their all to ensure the success of this institution. We trust that the rules are unlike the usual World Bank/International Monetary Fund that are completely anti-people packaged with intent to destabilize instead of stabilize. This Bank has a huge market; Africa’s largest economy is said to have an MSME population of about 37.9 million with only 14.6 per cent domestic credit in 2014. Compare this to South Africa’s 67.2 per cent in the same year the picture is gloomy and the message is clear – we need to reassess and evaluate existing policies in order to make the new ones work.

Nigeria is well endowed with resources that with proper harnessing will make her great, problem is with policy formulation and implementation. Those who design our policies are stuck with the notion of one-size fits all syndrome. This is why a lot of times the so- called fantastic policies drop like dead weights on issues they are meant to tackle. Job creation and employment generation lies with economic policies friendly to MSMEs.



source: Leadership News

Corruption; A Societal Moral Fallout - Tola Ogunnubi

For several years now, Nigeria has consistently been rated by Transparency International (TI), in their perception index as either the most corrupt or one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

Corruption has totally permeated all aspects of our national life, it has eaten deep into our national fabric from social, academic, industrial, and religious to political, diplomatic and even commercial fabric. It is the compelling factor that has condemned Nigeria to this shameful and shabby existence. In rejecting his nomination for the 2004 National Honours Award, eminent scholar and professor of literature, late Prof. Chinua Achebe said “Corruption in Nigeria has passed the alarming and entered the fatal stage and Nigeria will die if we keep pretending that she is only slightly indisposed”.

The latest news in town is the exposure of “some” of the corruption that went on in high places of governance and politicking, from the Office of the National Security Adviser involving the dramatis personae, and the high level of allegation against erstwhile government officials and former occupants alongside friends of the immediate past government. Those in government are the worst hit in this latest scams from the federal level to the states and to the local governments.

The corruption we are talking about is as a result of the low level of integrity coupled with a very low level of accountability and impunity which has led to the high level of attraction that the public offices enjoy hence, we have career bankers going into politics, oil magnates, successful academics and even celebrated journalists all jettisoning their careers for political offices in order to protect their interests and acquire easy and cheap money. But those of us watching the happenings in the political field believe that two kinds of players succeed in the political arena: those who believe that politics is a thug’s game played by gentlemen and those who believe politics is a gentleman’s game played by thugs. Those presently being indicted? They are probably a fish scapegoats.

The kind of pressure people mount on public office holders is too much. In order to meet these alarming pressure all from the family, peer and even personal pressure so as to impress those around them, these public officers go out of their ways and do what ordinarily they shouldn’t do. And because it is a societal moral fallout, public office holders and even those in the private sectors who connive with them don’t see anything wrong in what they do. They even go to the extent of “begging and buying” chieftaincy titles from the once sacred traditional institutions but which has now become a liquidated empire as a result of the activities of the contract seeking traditional rulers.

In our society today, because of the failure of some parents due to their inability to meet he needs of their children, they cannot ask the source of income of their children, they no longer have the moral strength to ask their children how come they have what they have in their possessions because they themselves are direct beneficiaries from such possessions. People stay in mansions that are too big to maintain.

I am a Christian, but I must confess the church has not lived up to expectations, the society seeks to see and take succor in the church for their problems but very few churches are living up to that billing. Majority of these churches are business centers. Holiness, righteousness and dedication to the works of God have for a long time been a thing of the past. You can imagine a ‘church’ buying shares in a blue chip company to the tune of 2.8 billion naira. I have been perplexed ever since I heard about this and I am still perplexed, surprised, disappointed and ashamed. Let us look at these, where did they get the money from? Why did they buy such shares? Won’t the “Bishop’s” son/ daughter become a director in the organisation? How would the dividends be shared? Has the church too become a profit seeking entity to be expecting profit in form of dividends from that company? I stand to be corrected, answered or enlightened on all these questions. It is now a thing competition for all religious groups to have their own private universities at an unaffordable fee to the majority of their members, who cannot afford it for their children/ wards.

Another misplaced competition going on in the religions grouping especially the churches is ownership of private jets in the midst of prevailing poverty. The other day, a pastor received a Porsche car worth several millions of naira as a birthday gift and even went to as far as Dubai to celebrate the ‘Man of God’s birthday. All these are not necessary, to me they are highly uncalled for. I think it’s high time, the Joint Tax Board and especially the FIRS started looking in the direction of our religious centers. You can imagine how much that can be generated to finance some of our national development programmes. After all, Jesus Christ paid tax in the book of Matthew 22:21.

The corruption we are talking of in Nigeria today is a massive one involving highly respected persons and our society role models. To me, I think these stealings are not necessary but it is borne out of ignorance. Yes, ignorance because for how long can a man live? Abacha’s loot is still being returned 18 years after his death. What a collective shame.

Corruption in Nigeria has gone beyond selfishness, gone beyond greed and self-sufficiency but has graduated from wickedness to madness. It is purely to oppress people. It is a case of class struggle to make the majority of the people subservient to them, to lord themselves over us, or how else can you justify an idle sum of over a billion naira sitting in an individual’s account with no need for it in the nearest future. I kid you not, 1billion is a huge amount of money no matter the current value of the Naira. We are so heartless and have deleted our conscience to the poverty around us that we no longer know we are to be our brother’s keeper. Where is our African culture of welcoming ourselves? Where is our African culture of looking after ourselves? Why did we destroy our African moral compass? When did we condescend to this low level of individualism?

Restoring optimism is the beginning of progress, like an American president once said, there is the need for government at all levels to support each other and one another in tackling these societal ills called corruption, and because these fight goes beyond the federal government’s ability alone, everybody should come to stand up and fight corruption so that the federal government’s effort will not be seen as succumbing to media trial and trial by mass appeal from a particular political party as the opposition PDP is proclaiming.

–Ogunnubi is a social and public consultant

AUN and 'Selfie' Generation

It was a colourful event last Monday at the American University of Nigeria (AUN), Yola, during which new students (tagged the class of 2020) were formally admitted into the institution. WINIFRED OGBEBO writes on the celebration and wise counsel handed out to the lucky students.

The dean of student affairs, American University of Nigeria (AUN), Mr Byron Bullock, set the ball rolling in his address to the freshers when he said: “I’ve come today to celebrate a new generation of young people, appropriately titled the ‘selfie’ generation.”

A ‘selfie’ generation? The Oxford Dictionary, it was in 2013, that proclaimed ‘selfie’ as the international word of the year. It is a word that is most used today and which has become universally accepted. Bullock who is also the vice president of AUN’s campus life described a ‘selfie’ generation as one that has become obsessed with taking of self-portraits with the use of smart phones and tablets and uploading same on social media like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or SnapChat, and which would change the world.

“This selfie generation I know will truly change the world. All of us as educators have a responsibility to change how these children see the world,” he stated, underscoring the need for the students to be properly guided to make it in a highly competitive and digitalized world.

Byron said it was the responsibility of educators to move the generation away from the spirit of self-centeredness to one of self-empowerment and provide them with the tools to become empowered and motivated at every level as they move to change the world.

“We have moved away from the sharing of ideas to these new ones. We have become obsessed with the sharing of our images rather than our content. Many believe that this generation has become self-centred, egoistical, mean, selfish and only focused on me, me and me.

“We are to teach these young people that as they grow and develop, their aim shall be defined by their actions and not by their pictures. It is important for them to know that those who act are remembered in this lifetime and those who react are forgotten.

“We are to teach them that they must move from a spirit of self-centredness to a spirit of self-awareness. Young people, as you grow and develop here as part of the selfie generation, you cannot just focus on your outward self, you must also bring a great attention to your inward self. What motivates you? While you are here, use it as an opportunity to find that out. Find out what pushes you. What pushes your body will lead you to discover the process you never knew you had,” he philosophized.

Admonishing the class of 2020 to be prepared to identify the person in that ‘selfie’ they post, Bullock said they should use the opportunity of their education at AUN to strive to find answers to such questions “who are you, what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, what motivates and frustrates that person in those pictures?”, adding that would guarantee their happiness and success in life.

As part of their selfie revolution, he told the freshers never to lose sight of the importance of self-respect, as he asked: “Do those pictures you post on social media speak well of your character, how do they define to employers and graduate school deans who have the same access to the information you have?

The dean of student affairs told the students “every opportunity to be engaged in this educational experience and in developing in the university both inside and outside of the classroom will only extend who you are and enhance your self-value. In addition to taking advantage of every educational opportunity afforded to you in the classroom, find a way to make a difference in community service and engagement. Find a way to make a contribution in leadership involvement”.

He added: “The world that awaits you when you graduate from this place will not be so kind to you. You have to be prepared for the realities of the real world. Therefore, be at peace with God whatever you conceive him to be and whatever is your aspiration in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its charm, gradually and broken dreams, it’s still a beautiful world.”

The president of AUN, Prof Margee Ensign who talked about the institution’s quality of education, described the university as a very unusual place because of its focus. “It’s a university focused on creating a new and better future for all of us,” she stated.

Referring to the challenge of widespread poverty, insecurity and underdevelopment in the northern part of the country where the school is located as part of its focus, she asked: “How do we help ensure the peace and security of this region of Nigeria? How do we foster greater prosperity in a region where people are so very poor? How can we provide better health care, sanitation and nutrition in a part of the country where child and maternal mortality rates are so very high—among the highest in the world?“

With oil the slump in oil price in the international market, the AUN president wondered how the institution could contribute to building a better economy in Nigeria. “How can we insure honest government throughout the land—how have other countries done this? What are the solutions for unemployment and youth despair? How can we deal with the advancing Sahara desert to the north and the pollution of the Niger Delta in the south?, she asked.

Also identifying other challenges like global warming, Ensign noted that last year was the hottest ever recorded in human history and asked “what do we have to do now to stop global warming? How can we have economic growth without destroying our planet? How can we best use the Internet and its amazing powers to make people’s lives better?”, adding “this is your moment—this is Nigeria’s moment, this is Africa’s moment.”

She commented on the school’s motto which is “Excellence, Integrity, and Service,”, pointing out that AUN had been doing extraordinary service of feeding hundreds of thousands of hungry Nigerians, giving women employable skills and income, giving thousands of boys and girls the opportunity to play and learn together in peace through sports, giving street children a meal a day and chance to learn to read, and some hope in Feed and Read, a project recently funded by the Irish government.

On his part, the president, Student Government Association, Mr Basil Abia, commended his fellow students for their active involvement in research achievements at the AUN, noting “we’re fast becoming a research force amongst international universities and thanks to the world class digitalized library coupled with the state of the art laboratories and facilities; we are really on the right track to becoming Africa’s development force.”

FUTO POLARIZED OVER THE APPOINTMENT OF NEW VC

OWERRI—The Federal University of Technology, Owerri, FUTO, has been polarized as the institution shops for a new Vice Chancellor, VC, that will take over from the incumbent, Professor Chigozie C. Asiabaka, in the next five months.

Strong feelers from the FUTO community revealed that there were serious plans to significantly alter the content of the advertisement already published by the institution.

Confirming the fear during a check yesterday, a senior FUTO staff alleged that “while the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the institution’s Governing Council appears favourably disposed to a particular contestant, others believe that the VC has his own candidate.”

The same senior staff not only told Vanguard that “an extra-ordinary meeting of the Senate is scheduled to hold today (Tuesday), in the  Senate Council Chamber”, but also alleged that the Governing Council would also meet  January 28, 2016, to also deliberate on the same issue.

The staff equally showed Vanguard the copy of a memorandum, REG/SEN/COM.3/XIV, dated January 21, 2016, and signed by the Registrar and Secretary to the Senate, Mr. Orje Ishegh-Nor.

According to the memorandum, the “appointment of Senate Representative in the Search Team for the appointment of the seventh substantive Vice Chancellor”, is top on the  agenda.

As at the last count, about seven professors from Owerri senatorial zone have applied for the post, while a few others from Orlu senatorial zone and Anambra State, have equally sent in their applications.

Meanwhile, Professor Asiabaka has stoutly denied the allegation that he is grooming one of the contestants to take his place.

Asiabaka, who made the denial when he fielded questions from journalists in Owerri, also said that he never contemplated doing such a thing.

“I am not grooming anybody. Such a thing is not in my agenda. God gives power to whoever he likes. He also takes it when he like. Those who want the office should apply and wait for the outcome of their application”, Asiabaka said.