How An Illiterate Was Made HOD Over Educated Staff In Sokoto Due To Religion
Is the wake of outcry over denial of Christian students in Federal University, Kashere, Gombe State, from having Chapel, a man named Tochukwu Ade has revealed something more damming in the north where religious is placed over competence.
Christian students and lecturers have been said to have been prevented from having a chapel FUK but there are dozens of mosques in the school.
Sharing his own story, Ade said he was in Sokoto for his National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) in 2012 as a pharmacist and serving at the Specialist Hospital located in the state capital, with the HIV clinic at the hospital.
He said the entire pharmacy department had only two pharmacists – an Hausa man who was the Head of Department (HOD) and one Yoruba Christian man, Pharm. Stephen, who was his supervisor at the time.
“Some months later, the HOD got a job with WHO & had to resign, so we had no HOD; hence, no one to coordinate & lead the pharmacy department in a big & important hospital as the specialist hospital, which was the major general hospital in the state capital.
For several months, the department didn’t have a HOD simply because they found it so impossible to make a Yoruba Christian to lead a pharmacy department in a core northern state.
Guess what? They made a store keeper who couldn’t even recognize paracetamol or doesn’t know the difference between Amicillin & Tetracycline, & had no university education whatsoever, as the HOD of the department. So Pharm Stephen had to start reporting to him.
I almost wanted to run mad. This was the most demeaning thing I had ever seen in my life.
After a few months, Pharm Stephen had to leave Sokoto where he had worked for almost 9 years & built a family to come to South West to start all over.
This was one of the many experiences that made me give up on the one Nigeria thing – it’s all a charade.”
