Never, In The Least, Was It Expected From Professor Mkpa Agu Mkpa!
By Don Ubani; KSC, JP
Saturday (Nkwo) 31-01-2026.
No matter how low standards in human conduct have dwindled, there remains certain expectations that individuals should not fall below.
Professor Mkpa Agu Mkpa is a distinguished Academic who, by any calculation, has had a lot of opportunities and privileges available in his State. During the Administration of Governor Orji Uzor Kalu, he was a Commissioner for Education, and later Vice Chancellor of Abia State University, Uturu, and that appointment extended to the Administration of Governor T. A. Orji ( Ochendo).
After his tenure as Vice Chancellor about 2010, Governor T. A. Orji (Ochendo) reposed deeper confidence in him by appointing him Secretary to State Government of Abia State, S.S.G.
I remember vividly while Professor Mkpa was S.S.G, the declining fortunes of Abia State University, Uturu, seriously came up in the State Executie Council following a report of Visitation Panel on the University, with two prominent Alumni of the University who were Members of the State’s EXCO pushing vehemently that the University had suffered very high neglect under the watch of Professor Mkpa. The opinion held by those two Alumni was that Professor Mkpa grossly lacked administrative capability and competence to have served as the Vice Chancellor of ABSU within the period under review.
Though the facts were glaring, the Governor (Ochendo) had soft spots for Professor Mkpa and, so, did not allow the Professor to be subjected to humiliation. Has Professor Mkpa forgotten so soon the compassion Ochendo had for him?
As if the three former Governors, His Excellencies; Distinguished Senators Orji Uzor Kalu and T. A. Orji (Ochendo), and Dr Okezie Ikpeazu, were each in love with Professor Mkpa, Governor Okezie Ikpeazu also gave a position of trust to Prefessor Mkpa. He appointed him Chairman of Abia State Independent Electoral Commission, ABSIEC.
Even when the present Governor’s erstwhile Political Party, All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, which had Chief Nkem Okoro as Chairman in the State, prostested against his appointment on the genuine ground that Professor Mkpa was a member of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Governor Ikpeazu did not bulge even for a second. Professor Mkpa, on his own, as a man of supposed conscience, never considered morally justifying that he should decline the offer in the overall public interest.
Apart from sound education which Professor Mkpa possesses, he is quite old enough to observe some reasonable restraint in verbal outburst. It is obnoxiously strange and disappointing that Professor Mkpa could condescend to talking like someone whose background is best fitted in that popular gutter at School Road, Aba.
It was, therefore, a rude shock watching Professor Mkpa Agu Mkpa in a video that has gone viral, openly and unashamedly disparaging the three Governors that he had seamlessly separately worked in their Administrations. For a Man of Professor Mkpa’s height and status to pick a microphone and state that what Governor Alexander Otti has achieved in two years has beaten the combined achievements of 24 years of the three former Governors he had prominently served in their Administrations is nothing short of a pronouncement that can only question the sanity of the speaker.
The most embarrassing aspect of Professor Mkpa’s speech was not that he converted the chance of meeting with Governor Otti to openly plead for a political appointment by the Governor but using such opportunity to state that his advice was either not sought or taken while he served in the three previous Administrations.
Professor Mkpa Agu Mkpa should have been disciplined and mature enough to have saved himself from that reckless and avoidable embarrassment of an unbridled sycophant. After all, no body will stand against Professor Mkpa visiting the Governor of his State. Equally, no one will begrudge Professor Mkpa Agu Mkpa for praising his Governor for his ‘wonderful performance’.
But it was self-destructive and absolutely nauseating for Professor Mkpa Agu Mkpa to have shamelessly opened his flippant trap to castigate not just one Governor or two Governors that had reposed confidence in him by offering him juicy appointments but the three of them, without sparing any of them. What does he think will be his rating in Governor Otti’s perception?
Honestly, never in the least were the vituperations by erudite professor mkpa agu mkpa expected of him, especially when it is considered that at no point did he either decline or resign from any of the appointments the three former Governors, who he has now developed joy in maligning, offered him. How is the Mighty fallen!
Sir Don Ubani is a former Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Abia State, and Publisher of Equity Global Reporters Ltd.
