The chancellor and founder of Gregory University, Uturu, Abia State, Prof Gregory Ibe, has explicitly made it clear that he would contest for the governorship election in 2023. Ibe explained why he would run for the governorship position as well as the reason he never entered into the race in the previous elections. He spoke on his motivation in establishing the university and why he chose Uturu, his home town. Ibe who is an academic, administrator, businessman and politician equally delved into other issues in this interview with Chigozie Uzosike (news editor), Afam Echi (editor), Ori Martins (managing editor) and Glory Ugochukwu (reporter).
In 2012, we all gathered here for this beautiful edifice- Gregory University Uturu. Years have gone. Can you tell us what attracted you to open this school instead of investing in oil and gas, banking, real estate or going into many other things?
Somehow, the decision to enter into any business that I will teach the younger generation entrepreneurship is that you must always calm your environment. Opportunities abound, you will see it hanging around, and some people will call it low hanging fruit when they see opportunity. But somehow, the enablement for you to grab certain opportunities might not be there. So, we first of all, thought we will go into oil and gas as you just said. I have properties scattered all over Nigeria. At a point, I found a blue line as God will direct, so I decided to go for education. My initial thought was to build hospital because my foundation and intention tend to deliver health to the aged. We started with seventy years and above. We will pay for their medical treatment, care for them and treat them.
By the time the hospital is getting its root we will start another program we are running, the old people’s home. Many of our parents are dying, the children have left home, so they pretend that they are okay, they go to farm and do other things. They children come back during Christmas and hang around but nobody cares about what did they eat yesterday or this morning and go back to their bases, pretending as if everything is okay. They will tell you that everything is okay.
So I believe that at a certain age people will adopt my system by sending their parents to my old people’s home, then the salaries that the children pay their parents, will be given to us then we take care and whenever the family wants them to go home then they can go home and see what is happening and return back, so that was my thinking. So we started thinking about these things and to set up hospital but in between the line my hobby to teach from my days in OND courses, secondary school and during graduate program resurfaced.
I was always teaching my classmates. When I finished my Ph.D, I decided to offer myself to Abia State University. Fortunately I was an accountant with interest in teaching so I felt I should come and invest in University to bring my expertise, to bring best practice and that knowledge that I have to the youth of Abia State in particular and South East and Nigeria in general. In Abia State University, I was deputy director of entrepreneurship, I was teaching everybody in the ABSU business block. I used to have about two thousand eight hundred students that were under me. But of course, the students do not come to class when they are supposed to because of lack of, or promotion of lousiness around scholars.
They have to sit at home or be in private hostel and get lazy coming to class. When we built the university everyone was leaving in the university but as the population was increasing we couldn’t provide for the accommodations that is what gave room for private participation outside hostels. So I hated it so much, so when a time came that university was something I should consider in my own, I decided to bring my expertise of teaching to build a university. When other regions where having private universities while Abia State and Imo State were lacking behind in getting private university, so I decided to venture into private university, I decided that both states in South East don’t go down.
We already had private universities like Madonna in Anambra. Then, because of the fact that what I do in the country is all about education, all my teaching aids, industrial materials, workshops, laboratory equipment in Nigeria polytechnics, in Nigeria universities, including elementary education. So I felt that each day I’m busy helping the growth of other universities in Nigeria, there comes a time that I can now provide an environment for Nigeria educational system to see how best we can do it, so that we can emulate from it. That’s why building a university after one year it got its license. I’m surprised that some people have spent 10 years but nothing that’s maybe because there were not ready, they stumble into it.
For me, everything is about experience and apprenticeship that involves building a university. I have learnt about it and involved with it. So I am a player in that circle. So I didn’t just set up or start university because I wanted to or there was need for it for it, I set up because I have the experience. I’m a lecturer; I have all it takes to run a university. As a business man or an entrepreneur, you set up a university but you can’t operate it the way I operate because I’m a different person who knows in and out of the university and knows the courage to build a university. As I usually tell my colleagues, I’m the chairman of all Proprietors of Private Universities in Nigeria.
Everything under the sun has its time and season. Former Governor Theodore Orji, told all of us to wait, that the south, that is the Ngwa enclave, will produce the governor after him and after eight years when it will be the time of the North we can now come and contest. Now, we are approaching 2023, I can assure you that we have prepared to offer ourselves for leadership position in Abia State.
You can imagine the big load. So we are all working together to bring quality to the educational sector in Nigeria and that’s how this university got founded. By the special grace of God we will move from strength to strength. I’m glad to say we are one of the best and the fastest growing universities in the country. From three colleges to 12 colleges, we are doing great. We are very much here and what we contribute is now known and we are not they people that run from advert. We want to achieve greatness – from your work people will know you.
Instead of telling people with the word of mouth, we give the best, the best, and nothing but the best. We have a commercial radio in Okigwe, our television is starting, we will be shooting movies here, and we will be doing Nollywood business in our school. We have a museum that we are setting up, we are bringing back the New Masquerade. We are taking the licence from NTA and bringing it back. So that’s what our university stands for.
In what ways distinguishes you from other universities in Nigeria?
You cannot talk about development or revamping of science and technology in Nigeria without me. And so, if I have a university, what happens in that university should be core science and technology. You will take that one as a key. But in a university it will be wrong of anybody to arrogate a university in Nigeria to be a mono system – we have all other supports. Because in College of Humanities, we do compulsory French here but our scholars are shying away from it to what would have been a better thing for their future. They do not know what I’m doing for them.
In Humanities, we have French, and you offer French and you would see one scholar offering it but you have employed French lecturers. In that case, you would be crying why I have French. We should shoot it down and during accreditation, you spend about three to four million naira to redeem that course, then you will still be crying. There is what we call elective. Those people that are doing GST that do compulsory French, the teachers that are in the College will be there to teach them. So there is need for the French teachers.
We have Law; we have Social and Management Sciences to offer those courses because this thing supports the scholars. Now the next time is science. We are the best in science: our Geology is the best, our Pharmacy is the best, and our laboratories are the best. We have Optometry, and we have Dentistry and we have Physiotherapy. We also have farm for the Agric students. We handle the World Igbo Summit – decisions are taken here during the summit. We have Igbo Renaissance Centre – to carry Igbo people to next level and next decades as we continue to be alive and if we are not still here, it will continue to go on. Then in Education, we have the Igbo Library here to promote everything about Ndigbo.
You can be sure, when you ask me where my focus is, I will tell you that the entire area is my focus that is touching lives and will make people to have development in all areas of life. So we are a great institution.
What do you have to say about Igbo and 2023 presidency?
This is March. Before now, all my elders and people that are younger have been shying away from promoting their right; right to leadership in this country. But because of what I do in World Igbo Summit, it took like two- three months to go round to all ethnic groups in Nigeria, agree with them and brought everybody to Sheraton Hotel in Abuja at exactly 5th of March, 2020. I did the meeting and I asked questions. Can Nigeria from the entire ethnic groups tell me why an Igbo man cannot rule Nigeria? Why can’t we rule Nigeria? We should be told today.
Alhaji Tanko-Yakasai was there, he said that there was nothing wrong. Another one apologized and said that there was nothing wrong; Rivers State people said that there was nothing wrong, every tribe, everybody spoke. From 6th of March last year till now, that is when the Igbo people rose up to start indicating interest. I started it because nobody could do it in Abuja but I called the conference, I spent my money. When I came back from the US after the pandemic, I called for the coalition meeting, all the people that I have heard and recorded, came to this university and I told them look, it is time to run a coalition and have a mandate to reach and appoint the groups that will go round the country.
Some of them have been listening to some people, some are moles in Igbo nation. Some people are pursuing their own agenda. For me I have resolved based on the right papers on the communiqué reached by my people. I am carrying on their mandate to Nigerians and more will come. From Igbo of South East extraction, a president of Nigeria will emerge. If you listen or read my comments, no ethnic group is more placed in unity than where we are today. One thing is clear, even if they make an Igbo man president, 90% of the Igbo will not benefit from that person but what they wanted to do is that we agree that my brother has been given opportunity and we have been given opportunity to be welded into the Nigeria system.
If nobody allows us now when will they allow us, when we are dead? If we can’t do it now and again the more you avoid the South Easterner from being president, they more you are creating an indiscretion in the country. There is no way an Igbo man will be president and indiscreet on the country, fear or create some illusions. The day an Igbo man becomes president they will see that Nigeria will become commonly united and then the acceptance of Ndigbo to Nigerian politics will become well known and our result will be there.
We are the only people, with all due respect, that are everywhere in Nigeria. We invest all over the country but Nigerians have yet to accept us. Let nobody joke with it, the South East will make a better president and I normally give references. Why the American people along the line said lets allow a black man to lead us. They gave Obama opportunity to lead. Did Obama do everything for the black people? He didn’t. The issue is that his position started and now we have another black person being vice president and then in the unity of America blacks are not dogs. In Nigeria the Igbo man will not create wars. They Igbo man will lead and give resounding leadership attitude that the world will be proud of. This is why we must be. In fact, to your question, this must be a goal that must be achieved.
As a politician, why have you not ventured into Abia governorship contest?
Well, everything under the sun has its time and season. I follow as a PDP man; I follow things religiously they way they go. As far as I’m concerned, zoning in PDP became the way to go and Abia State follows this zoning. I thank God that former Governor Theodore Orji, an apostle of zoning, equity and fair play told all of us to wait, that the south, that is the Ngwa enclave, will produce the governor after him and after eight years when it will be the turn of the North we can now come and contest. Therefore, I obeyed the party and obeyed my elders, obeyed party structure and the reality of zoning. Now, we are approaching 2023, I can assure you that we have prepared to offer ourselves to leadership position in Abia State and then confirming that I still remain a politician and academician.
Do you support the call for restructuring of Nigeria?
Well that’s what I’m telling you. If you go back to the Awka declaration, when Ndigbo were gathered in Awka, you will see the first two-three paragraphs, Soludo read that the decision for Ndigbo to accept restructuring at the basis for governance in Nigeria or in future governance of Nigeria was agreed in World Igbo Summit meeting in Uturu at Gregory University (Uturu Declaration). I served Ndigbo as the deputy Lead Consultant at the National Conference. You can imagine me, doing everything for Ndigbo, preaching restructuring and asking all the parties to give us opportunity. Let my Yoruba brothers leave us to lead, allow us to lead, they will understand. Let the Hausa/Fulani allow us to lead. We are Nigerians and we have equal rights. Restructuring is a part of us and they should know that if they want to restructure or they don’t want to restructure, is giving Igbo man presidency.
What do you think is actually Nigeria’s problem?
Nigeria’s actual problem is, when we talk about culture. Culture is the passing of norms and values from the old to the young that is the definition of culture. The culture that has affected Nigeria is passing these values and norms against Ndigbo and a particular way we behave to their children’s children and they see it has a way to go against us but time is evolving. When things will start changing and we will see that those that you didn’t call king will end up being king. People will rise up, when Joseph became a king in Egypt nobody expected that to happen but God walked all his way to give them that, those people who didn’t believe that we will come they saw it happen. So the best is Nigeria should come together and all politicians to say that we should be wielded into the fabric of Nigeria so that we can have a country. We don’t want this behavior every day. We want to provide leadership and that leadership is the leadership that will bring Nigeria into the lead of equals and one Nigeria.
Given the crucial role of research in Nigeria to development, Universities are regarded as centers of excellence, now how will you rate the role of universities in the development of Nigeria?
First all, anything I discuss about universities, I am also inclusive but let me look at it from the broader sense of it. We, the universities are failing the nation. So also let’s break it into two. Public Universities if any professor or lecturer is going into research and is starting a research, for example a science or engineering related. They started the science twelve or thirteen months ago and went on ASUU strike will those research continue. So they have used ASUU strike and labour opportunities for unionization, union to mess up academic intuitions within the public universities. They have so messed it up, and then you start wondering that our stars have gone.
The funding that they are seeking for is ending up in their pocket, is not the funding to attract the professors from all over the world. One thing that is going to kill the universities is that they cannot fund the public universities gratis- with about forty thousand naira paid as bills. You pay one million or two million for your son or daughter to go to private secondary schools and when he or she is ready for the universities you will say you have scholarships at the university that they are paying forty thousand naira and you now leave the person to go to public university, it is subsidized by federal government. So everything runs under the level of subsidy. Teachers are saying leave me alone I don’t need this.
There is no way an Igbo man will be president and indiscreet on the country, fear or create some illusions. The day an Igbo man becomes president they will see that Nigeria will become commonly united and then the acceptance of Ndigbo to Nigerian politics will become well known and our result will be there. We are the only people, with all due respect, that are everywhere in Nigeria. We invest all over the country but Nigerians have yet to accept us.
And the children are equally not serious because there is no commitment to whatever thing is happening. So the university keeps on lingering behind by the day. In time like this, we make it resemble what can attract research from all over the world because we cannot work in isolation. I have quoted one million dollars to go into vaccine production. My university has written letters to all universities to submit any research topic they have, so that we can be ready to produce vaccines and all that. We have not seen any reply. So on the first, through my companies, my partner is Dr. Uche Umale, we happened to develop the first innovation and research centre in Abuja, Skill G Innovation Centre at Airport road, Abuja.
We are supported by Israeli embassy in Nigeria- Israeli government. We have all the youths with good ideas and we are mentoring them and in few months time. We will bring the investors to buy their ideas. Can you imagine the thing I’m doing for my country? So the universities are not helping or the lecturers in the universities are not helping because there is no need to say it is the universities. It is the commitment of the lecturers who think of the research TETFUND is ready to give them money. To what extent is given to them is put into use. TETFUND as decided by the chairman decides to give University money for research. So what did you think will be the part of the people? They will take the money and misuse the money. So the universities don’t do their work and government needs to stop these strikes going on in schools.
