Prof Ikonne is a story changer. In more ways than one, he is a game changer- one that scores winning goals when all the fans, supporters and spectators are poised for extra time. When he does this last minute winner, he still celebrates in absolute humility as he is always noiseless achiever.
It is important for us to bring it to the fore now that this man great intellectual capacity and exceptional vision, sensationally transformed Abia State University (ABSU) from a gutter inclined arena called university to a nationally acclaimed tertiary institution of learning. Prof Ikonne changed the ABSU narratives.
First, Ikonne introduced a slogan which he tagged ” Our Story Must Change”. The mantra dramatically changed ABSU from an absurdity to cohesion and other laudable achievements.The impact of Our Story Must Change was multiple as it frankly brought out the best from all the academic, non academic workers and the students as well. ThIs way, he eliminated unwanted and needless bureaucracy in the school’s administration but retraining it where necessary.
To prove that he doesn’t believe in recalcitrant behavior, Ikonne made sure that workers that were complacent were made to wake up from their apparent slumber or face the music. For instance, there was a strict adherence to time and schedules in the University during his administration as vice chancellor. There was nothing like African or Nigerian time: it became a thing of the past. The anthem then was “time is money”.
Another important hallmark of Ikonne’s tenure as VC of ABSU, was that students were respected and encouraged to work harder as they were given the leverage to access their scripts and also demand for justice against lecturers’ molestation and intimidation. With this in place, lecturers who might have wished to misbehave while handling the students scripts were entirely discouraged from doing so. At the same time, since anybody could access the scripts, students who depended on the odious practice of “sorting” were equally discouraged. And so, it was work and work for both the lecturers and the students.
Quite commendably, the ugly menace of cultism was fought to submission as it was reduced drastically in ABSU. Ikonne was the man behind all that courageous battle against cultism in ABSU. Before his arrival as the VC, the University was always in the news for the wrong reasons of cultism menace. As a matter of fact, lifeless bodies, headless bodies of students and workers of ABSU used to be the only trending news oozing out from the campus and well reported in the media, particularly, social media platforms.
The foregoing, simply put, demonstrates that Ikonne is coming to Abia to add value to the system.
Thus, Ikonne’s ideologues is to add executive and operational values to the system for the purposes of establishing a process on which his successors will drive the state to greater glory. Ikonne is poised to make Aba a truly industrial hub and also lift Umuahia as a truly capital befitting for Abia.
