Nigerian Lecturer Victimised for 24 Years by Nigerian university Dies Aged 73

By: Olufemi Orunsola 

Reports reaching the news desk at OPEN TELEVISION NAIJA (OTN) News have it that a Nigerian lecturer, Prof Inih Ebong, who was unjustly sacked 24 years ago by the University of Uyo (UniUyo), Akwa Ibom State, has been reported dead in the early hours of Wednesday.

The wife of the Associate Professor, Uduak, OTN News gathered was reported to have confirmed the demise of her husband in a quavering voice.

According to her, the Professor has gone at age of 73, recalling that he (Ebong) stayed awake into the late night and was talking continuously from his sickbed.

Prior to his death, Prof.Ebong was said to have on April 13, called from his sickbed and complained that he had stay too long in the hospital, that it was as if he was in prison and wanted to go home, before demise at the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, around 7 a.m

OTN gathered that the widow explained that while she tried to persuade him to calm down and sleep adding that she later fell asleep, only to wake up and realise that he was lifeless.

OTN News recalls that the University of Uyo(UniUyo) had unjustly sacked the lecturer in 2002 for persistently criticising the university’s authorities over alleged corruption and maladministration.

The university published a disclaimer on him in a national daily to scare off other potential employers, and since then, five successive vice-chancellors failed to reinstate and pay Ebong his accumulated salary and other entitlements despite a string of court victories, including last December’s Court of Appeal judgement, which finalised litigation over the illegal termination of his appointment.

OTN News further gathered that the lecturer, being out of job for over two decades, could hardly feed himself and his family, let alone take care of his medical treatment, while he was later diagnosed with cardiac failure in October 2020.

The Doctors did not give him much chance of survival before a Nigerian billionaire and philanthropist, Femi Otedola, stepped in to fund his medical treatment following a media report, however, a private hospital in Uyo.

Although Ebong was already showing signs of recovery until he relapsed last February, while his two feet were swollen, creating the suspicion of a kidney problem and through his private doctor’s referral, he was moved to the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital in March.