Treat claims by Nigerian professor as ‘bogus’ – UG

The management of the University of Ghana, Legon (UG) has called on the general public to disregard claims by Professor Austin Nwagbara, a Nigerian Professor of English who was captured on video denigrating the university and other Ghanaian tertiary institutions at a meeting.

The Professor in a viral video implored the Nigerian media to tear up Ghana in the eyes of the international community through negative reportage.

Citing on some strategies, the professor said “We’re highly skilled and highly talented and blessed people but many at time we lack strategy, Nigerians tend to lack strategy. You can have good skills, if you don’t know how to let people know it, it is there; dies, like having a factory full of items in the warehouse. If you don’t advertise it remains in the warehouse.

“They have harassed us a lot, I know that… What I’m saying is we need strategies. I’ll suggest something which the embassy can think about; I know they know which they can do immediately at the Nigerians community. There is bad image for Nigeria; we can take it back through the press. We can reverse it. We have powerful Nigerian media stations, channels broadcast all over the world, there’s active online social media, the plot in Nigeria. Let them come here and run documentaries of the experiences of Nigerians and blast it all over the world. In three days Ghana would respond”.

However in a statement, the University of Ghana stated that although professor Austin Nwagbara was a visiting scholar at the University during the 2011/12 academic year, he has since left the university.

“The claims Professor Nwagbara makes in the video relating to the University’s sources of income, students fees, etc. are incorrect and do not in any way represent the true facts and figures of the University’s income and state of affairs.

“Beyond the many provocative statements, he launches into a tirade against universities in Ghana in general, and the University of Ghana in particular.

“The said Professor has been identified as Professor Austin Nwagbara, a Nigerian Professor of English who is currently not a member of faculty at the University of Ghana,” it said.

The university, in the statement signed by its Director of Public Affairs, Stella A. Amoa, further described the comments as mischievous and urged the public to treat the video with the contempt it deserves.