To suggest that he has never gone to school is spectacularly stupid - Prof Pat Utomi

I know Anthony Kila. I became aware of all the trending discussions about his career rather late. I have never had any reason to ask about his certificates or letters of appointment, so I cannot claim to have those details. But if he has never gone to school, then those who have must ask for a refund.

We watched the cyber mob bully Jason Arday, the youngest Black professor ever appointed at Cambridge, to his early de@th. Incidentally, I first met Anthony Kila in the city of Cambridge, England, in 2006, when I was beginning a run for the office of President of Nigeria. Among those in the mob that sought to lynch Arday were white professors who had been pardoned for mistakes of a far worse nature.

I do not know who may be going after Kila in a country where many people confer academic and non-academic titles on themselves, while the media, through its status-conferring function, elevates them to celebrity status. But this does not seem normal. I can empathise, having had a similar experience.

Years ago, when a journalist tried to suggest that my stay at Volkswagen Nigeria had something to do with its demise, I offered ₦12 million to anyone who could produce a shred of evidence to support that claim. Fifteen years on, no one has come forward to claim the bounty.

When I became the first professor of Pan-African (Pan-Atlantic) parent of the Lagos Business School, someone at UNILAG went, “…huh,” until he found out that the evaluating team was led by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan.

Perhaps if professors like Adele Jinadu in Political Science and Joe Umo at UNILAG had not met me in graduate school abroad and interacted with my HOD, Elinor Lin Ostrom, who went on to become the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, someone might have written something demeaning about my education.

Kila is a smart and good man. I cannot guarantee that he has never made mistakes, but to suggest that he has never gone to school is spectacularly stup!d.