Professor Wale Oladipo, a professor of Nuclear analytical techniques at the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife and a failed gubernatorial aspirant under the auspices of PDP in Osun state and also the current National Secretary of the ruling PDP, has been making headlines in the past few days as a statement claiming that GMB is a semi-illiterate has been credited to him.
In fact, there is a voice recording of him addressing party faithful, so it is not debatable that he said these disgraceful words. The issue at hand is that if a man like Professor Oladipo can utter such a statement, we are doomed in this country. This reinforces the fact that you can be well educated but lack the ability to undergo critical thinking.
I have met with and interacted with lots of professors from all over the world and they are just a joy to interact with, they choose their words very carefully and they seem to be adept in every discourse you bring up, but Prof’s utterances about GMB is to put it mildly bereft of intelligence we know academicians for. He should go to Otan Ayegbaju, and like my friend Ademola H Adigun posited last week, he should beg his father for forgiveness and make a full and total refund of all the monies that he has spent on his education.
Par adventure, if Prof has received any form of scholarship from the federal government or from the commonwealth, he will do well by refunding the monies spent on him, it has turned out to be a total waste of money. If a professor of Nuclear and analytical techniques can descend so low, to the abysmal depths of ineptitude and academic insolence, to call a Sand Hurst trained soldier a semi-illiterate. No wonder the nuclear program of Nigeria has been mediocre.
A simple Google search of GMB’s academic qualifications by Prof would have saved him from this embarrassment. The veiled message that Prof was trying to send to the world is that GMB is not well educated, but let me remind Prof that he (Prof) went to Iyan fowo rogi high school, Otan Ayegbaju. In case the good Prof does not know, GMB graduated as a military officer (Lieutenant) at the Royal Military Academy, Aldershot UK. He attended the Defense College India. Col Buhari attended the US Army War College Carlisle in Pennsylvania from 1979 -1980 and earned his command as a Brigadier General.
The respected General Collin Powell attended the same school in 1976 to become Brigadier General. Some of Buhari’s classmates include General Beltson, General Thomas P Carney, General Bill Matz, General David E.K. Cooper etc. all of them are alive and can be reached and they will give glowing tributes of the Man Buhari they know as their classmate. This is in contrast to Professor, who does not have a good reputation in Ife or even amongst his peers.
So next time, Prof wants to throw stones, he should critically think about the words that will come out of his mouth, as Professor of Nuclear chemistry, he should dissect the atomic structure of his words and thoughts. I hope he has realized that he has erred in referring to GMB as a semi-illiterate, and as an erudite scholar, he should make an unreserved apology to GMB for his unguarded utterances.
On a final note, the grammatically illiterate Professor should know that there is no word like ‘semi-illiterate’. The correct word is semi-literate.
Sorry prof, you had no access to a Dictionary in your village school at Otan Ayegbaju!
