E. T. Udom II
If names truly carry spirits, then the University of Uyo has just survived a full-blown climate disaster. For years, the institution laboured under the weight of a Vice Chancellor whose very surname (Ndaeyo, or “dry season”) seemed to prophesy the experience of his administration. And what a dry season it was: a season where grass refused to grow, ideas refused to flow, and even common sense (usually the cheapest commodity) went on strike.
Sanitation on campus took a long sabbatical. Students began to wonder if the cleaners had been raptured without announcement. The academic standard, once a proud monument, slowly melted like ice cream in Mbierebe sunshine. “Cash-and-carry” admission became so notorious that some applicants reportedly arrived at screening with POS machines, just in case. Contracts were split like firewood in a village square; appointments bent like plantain leaves in the wind of nepotism. If a dry season could walk, talk, and sign memos, this was it.
But finally, mercifully, gloriously, the dry season has ended.
The day his tenure wound down, UniUyo breathed the kind of collective sigh usually reserved for NEPA restoring light after three days of darkness. Even the trees along the Senate Building looked greener, as if they too had been praying for rain. Staff whispered “thank God” like people released from a compulsory fasting programme. Students began planning how to wash their white shirts again without dust storms undoing their efforts.
His exit from the top echelon has been nothing short of cathartic. In fact, in recent weeks, anything concerning him has been avoided with the same swiftness people avoid expired yoghurt. Meetings with his name? Cancelled. Events he was meant to attend? Postponed. Even his official portrait now hangs on the wall like a warning sign: “Beware of Dry Seasons.”
Now, with the atmosphere clearing and hope returning, UniUyo stands ready to welcome a new era—hopefully one with rainfall, fresh air, restored standards, and a VC whose name doesn’t double as a weather forecast.
For now, students and staff alike are dancing under the first drops of long-awaited institutional rain. The dry season is gone. UniUyo can finally breathe again.
