Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The visiting Nigerian lecturer, Prof. Augustine Nwagbara, sacked by the University of Education, Winneba, Ghana, over comments he made in a video that has since gone viral, has demanded that his dismissal be withdrawn or else he will head to the courts.
Nwagbara, a professor of English language, has been on sabbatical at the Department of Applied Linguistics since October 2018.
He made the demand when he paid a courtesy call on the Chairman, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa, to thank her and the Nigerian government for coming to his aide while he was facing the storm in the western African country.
Nwagbara who said his sack was yet to be officially communicated to him, added that he was waiting for the diplomatic engagement to be exhausted and if he was not satisfied, he would seek redress in court.
Nwagbara said he was being owed arrears among other entitlements but the university authorities had directed the bursary to delete his name from the pay role.
Asked if he would seek redress in court he said: “Well, not yet. I will like the diplomatic end to be handled first; when that comes to an end and if comes to a brick wall, then I will like the other options.”
Asked what his demands were he said: “What I will be demanding from the university is that they should withdraw their dismissal. It is not done. It is not only for my sake but it is not good for their image as well. I don’t mind whatever action they consider but dismissal is unprofessional, it’s unethical.
“It was so bad that at the time they did that, students scripts were with me, I could have held onto them and that would be a negotiating tool. But like you said, there is no need for retaliation; the lives of the students could have been at stake but I had to drop the scripts through a third party.
“You see over 500 Nigerians have been deported and if you ask me, I think those ones are even lucky, how about those in prison?
“At times, the immigration authorities will go and pack in front of a church attended by Nigerians and demand their papers. People don’t go about with their papers sometimes and these guys are not so educated and so they get intimidated. We hear they also go to student hostels and do the same thing.
“Yes, nobody should be intimidated. We demand that we are Africans; it just can’t be the same. Look at a situation where one trader goes to another trader’s shop and locks it because he is a Nigerian and nobody is arrested, detained or queried. The question is ‘do they do that to Chinese shops, Lebanese shops, Indian shops? So that is the xenophobic dimension to it. So if there is a law that says foreigners don’t do retail, then take it across the board.
“This is my second time in Ghana and I have made a lot of friends. The good thing is that most of friends and colleagues do not think the way the government thought.
“There are lines that shouldn’t be crossed especially when it borders on human life. You can’t correct an error when a life is involved. If you could see the trauma I went through and imagined if it was a trader without a name attached to it that had gone through it, what would have happened? He could have made more mistakes which could have criminalised him.”
Dabiri-Erewa, in her response, agreed that a lot of caution has to be stressed and demand respect.
According to her, “respect begets respect and we are going to demand respect and decent treatment of our brothers and sisters wherever they are.
“We have taken this up with the Ghanaian authorities; we have received a lot of cooperation from them and we hope that the cooperation will continue. Do not let us get to the level of retaliation. I hope we don’t and we will not. In the main time, we will work with every country and demand that if a Nigerian commits a crime just deal with that person but do not generalise. We are going to stress that particularly with our brothers and sisters in the West African countries.
“We need to work together to work promote unity. Over 500 Nigerians deported in six months? If Nigeria decides to do same it will not augur well for the continent, but we will keep engaging them.
“With the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) agreement recently signed, we need to tolerating each other.”
Dabiri-Erewa also commended the Nigerian High Commissioner in Ghana for his prompt action and other efforts he is making to protect Nigerians in that country.