Inih Ebong, an associate professor of theatre arts, who was unjustly sacked 24 years ago by the University of Uyo (UniUyo) in Akwa Ibom State, is dead.
73-year-old Ebong died in the early hours of Wednesday, 16 April, at the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, his wife, Uduak, told PREMIUM TIMES around 7 a.m.
“He is gone,” Uduak said in a quavering voice.
Uduak said Mr Ebong stayed awake into the late night and was talking continuously from his sickbed while she tried to persuade him to calm down and sleep. She said she later fell asleep, only to wake up and realise that he was lifeless. “I ran out to the nurses. They came in and confirmed he’s dead,” she said.
UniUyo unjustly sacked the lecturer in 2002 for persistently criticising the university’s authorities over alleged corruption and maladministration.
The university published a disclaimer on him in a national daily to scare off other potential employers.
Since then, five successive vice-chancellors failed to reinstate and pay Mr Ebong his accumulated salary and other entitlements despite a string of court victories, including last December’s Court of Appeal judgement, which finalised litigation over the illegal termination of his appointment.
Being out of job for over two decades, the lecturer could hardly feed himself and his family, let alone take care of his medical treatment.
Ebong was diagnosed with cardiac failure in October 2020. Doctors did not give him much chance of survival before a Nigerian billionaire and philanthropist, Femi Otedola, stepped in to fund his medical treatment following a PREMIUM TIMES report.
A private hospital in Uyo treated him. He was showing signs of recovery until he relapsed last February. His two feet were swollen, creating the suspicion of a kidney problem. Through his private doctor’s referral, he was moved to the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital in March.
‘I want to go home’
On Sunday, 13 April, Mr Ebong called a PREMIUM TIMES reporter from his sickbed and complained, “I have stayed here too long. It’s as if I am in prison. I want to go home.”
His young daughter was by his bedside when Mr Ebong made the call.
“It would be a shame, the blood of Dr Inih Ebong will be on the management, will be on the Senate and the Governing Council of the University of Uyo if Dr Inih Ebong dies, without getting justice,” a human rights lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, said in 2020 when he flew in from Lagos to show sympathy and solidarity with the lecturer.
The late Ebong, from Ibiono Ibom Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State, had his secondary education at the Etinan Institute in Akwa Ibom.
He obtained his first degree at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and his postgraduate studies at the University of Birmingham in the UK.
