Pat Utomi: I know Anthony Kila…

‘To suggest Kila has not gone to school is spectacularly stupid’

‘To suggest Kila has not gone to school is spectacularly stupid’

I know Anthony Kila. I was late to awareness of all the trending stuff about his career. I have never had need to ask of his certificates and letters of appointment and so cannot claim to have those details.

But if he has never gone to school then those who have must ask for a refund. We watched the cyber mob bully Jason Arday, youngest black professor ever appointed at Cambridge to his early death. Incidentally I first met Anthony Kila in the city of Cambridge, England in 2006 when I was beginning a run for the office of President of Nigeria.

Among those in the mob to lynch Arday were white professors pardoned mistakes of worse nature. I do not know who may be going after Kila in a country where many people give academic and non-academic titles to themselves and the status conferral function of the media elevates them to celebrity. But it does not seem normal. I can empathize from my experience.

When years ago a journalist tried to suggest my stay at VWoN had something to do with its demise I posted N12million for anybody who could come up with a shred of evidence in that regard. Fifteen years on and no one has tried to claim the bounty.

When I became the first professor of Pan African(Pan Atlantic) parent of the Lagos Business School someone at Unilag went … huh until he found out that the evaluating team was led by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan.

Perhaps if Professors like Adele Jinadu in Pol sci and Joe Umo at UNILAG had not met me in grad school abroad and interacted with my HOD Elinor Lin Ostrom who went on to become the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, someone will write something demeaning about my education.

Kila is a smart and good man. I cannot guarantee he has not made mistakes but to suggest he has not gone to school is spectacularly stupid.