By Shedrack Eze, Onyekachi Agu and Okeke Mercy

Barring last-minute change in plans, Professor Nicholas Attamah is set to be returned unopposed as the dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities when the deanship elections are conducted on August 15, 2024, in ESUT, www.esutmonitor.com can report authoritatively.

Investigation by this paper shows that currently, Prof Attamah is the sole candidate for the position of dean in the faculty.

Having assumed duties in November 2021, Prof Attamah’s remarkable achievements, perhaps, scared others from challenging him for the position.

Many political watchers in the faculty believe that he has set antecedents that he may find difficult to outdo in his second term as the past three years in the faculty have witnessed improvements in both structure and welfare of the staff and students.

For instance, staff in the faculty have witnessed unprecedented promotions to the ranks of professors and readers as well as other levels, thanks to the pragmatic faculty board which Prof Attamah superintends.

 In a chat with ESUT Monitor, the dean provided more insights on why he deserved the return votes. 

“I came in, over two years ago and through the effort of the board, we have gotten three Associate Professors to full professorship and also about five of them have moved from senior lecturer positions to Associate Professors.

“Then the CCMAS that was introduced by the NUC, my faculty was the first to complete the CCMAS and NUC also recognized my Faculty for such a feat we achieved.

“In terms of students’ welfare, we have been able to organize the students in such a way that they now know their rights and privileges. Over the years, many students who come to school don’t even know their rights, they see a lecturer as a god which is not supposed to be.

“I have organized seminar to inform them about their rights and privileges on campus and have also told them that they should regard lecturers and non-lecturers here who are workers, as their parents. Students will get to understand their lecturers when they don’t see them as gods because communication will be easier.

“We have six departments here – Economics, English and Literary Studies, Political Science, Sociology and Anthropology, Psychology and History and International Studies. These are the six departments that make up the Faculty for now. And that is why we have Social Sciences and Humanities.

“The Vice Chancellor has promised that by next year, the faculty will demerge so that we will stand as Faculty of Social Sciences. Then Humanities can now go and form Faculty of Arts and Humanities.

“We have made it compulsory, every student will dress in their uniform from home. Before I took over students dressed while on campus. They hang their uniforms and on entering the Faculty, they start dressing. But I made sure they dress from home and before I did that, I showed example. I wore the uniform for Economics for two days,  I did that for the Political Science and each time I wore it, I call them to come and see me dress from home, not hanging it and coming here to put on the dress.

“There is serenity in the faculty and students now do their studies without any harassment from any lecturer. I have also told the students that why lecturers are lazy these days is because the students no longer want to study. The faculty library was not in proper shape when I came in. Nothing was happening there. Through the help of our staff and students we were able to tile the whole floor of the library. If you go there it’s looking neat and well arranged,” Prof Attamah said.

The 2024 ESUT Dean of Faculty elections will hold on August 15 across all the 12 faculties in the university. ESUT registrar, Chief Ambrose Ugwu told this paper that there is no going back on the date adding that the management is already waiting for the results of the elections.