Simon is Working’: UNN’s Tomorrow is Finally Here

       BY CHRIS AGBEDO (Ph.D)

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In the annals of Nigeria’s governance rhetoric, slogans have often doubled as both anthem and parody. They are coined as political signatures but quickly escape the lips of politicians to live in the mouths of the people, sometimes in praise, often in jest. In Anambra State, the refrain “Willie is Working” became the sing-song of the Willie Obiano years. To some, it was the chorus of continuity; to others, it was parody disguised as praise. Yet, no matter the angle, it was a declaration that governance could be measured in visible labour.

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Fast forward to Enugu State, and a new mantra took root. The taciturn table-shaker and monosyllabic straight-faced enigma, Governor Peter Mbah, with the disruptive swagger of a technocrat cum business man in politics, introduced “Tomorrow is Here.” It was not merely a slogan; it was an audacious philosophy. If Willie’s mantra implied progress in process, Mbah’s insisted on immediacy of dividends – a collapsing of the wait-time between promise and delivery. Tomorrow, as the archetypal nuclear submarine proclaimed, was not a distant horizon but an urgent present.

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And now, at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, the circle is complete. Enter Prof Simon Ortuanya, the 16th Vice Chancellor, and it became impossible to ignore the parody that has become a paradigm: “Simon is Working.” It is neither borrowed nor imposed; it is rather a fusion of the two earlier mantras. For if Willie worked and tomorrow is here, then surely, Simon must be working. Others have stretched the fusion into rhetorical permutations: “When Willie worked and tomorrow arrived, Simon began delivering.” Or even more playfully: “Between Willie’s work and tomorrow’s arrival stands Simon’s march of the Lions.” Whether playful or profound, all point to one truth: under Ortuanya’s hand, UNN is being shepherded back into the sunlight of promise.

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Then comes the allegory of Mbe and Aniga. To fully capture the moment, one must turn to the mythical world of Mbekwu Okoshi, the tortoise, and his dutiful wife, Aniga. Two days after a night of vigorous gymnastics on the conjugal ógòdó (bed), Mbe reclined beneath the eave of his hut, eyes fixed on Aniga as she spat repeatedly into the dust. For mbe, (alias Ikemefula – ‘may my efforts not be in vain’) – each gob of spittle was not mere saliva; it was proof; verifiable empirical evidence that his ‘penalty kick’ had achieved its desired ‘goal’. Aniga’s spitting was a clear proof that all his efforts were not empty – the life ambition of all men! Whether or not it would blossom into pregnancy, the hard-working Mbe felt vindicated, chest thumping in quiet triumph.

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So, it was on 27 August 2025, when Prof Ortuanya, with Shakespearean poise and Brutus-like cadence, delivered his inaugural Senate address. Each point he made flowed with the feline fluidity of a cat and mellifluous suavity of Ancient Greece’s Demosthenes, America’s Martin Luther King Jnr, Ancient Rome’s Marcus Tullius Cicero or even Nepal’s Gen Z revolutionary, Abiskar Raut, each pause punctuated by thunderous applause. Senators clapped, not out of duty but out of conviction that here, at last, was a voice that understood their anxieties and dared to sketch a roadmap for rebirth. Much like Mbe, senators whispered within: whether these words be mere spittle or the early positive signs of a full-blown pregnancy of transformation, they were satisfied. Hope was rekindled, and that hope was no mean thing. The senators, long stranded in the middle of nowhere except in the wilderness of drought longed to step into an oasis that came down to them in the likeness of a Simon and quench their scorching thirst even if momentarily.

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However, the signs of ‘spitting’ that followed weeks after the hope-rising inaugural address tended to show that the thirst-quenching juice may eventually transcend the fleeting threshold of delusion or mirage. Barely a month into Prof Ortuanya’s tenure, the campus began to buzz with signs of renewal. Contractors remobilized to sites long abandoned. The Innoson Tractor Assembly Plant, once dogged and atrophied by bureaucratic shenanigans, is set to clank back to life, as gleefully announced by the 16th Vice Chancellor. The high-rise Senate building, birthed by the previous administration, is suddenly beginning to breathe again. Even the archeological artifact of a decrepit fuel station at the Works Department has begun its slow but steady resurrection. Networks of roads, with yawning potholes, are being reconstructed. Caterpillars and bulldozers are now common sights on campus as they drill and excavate hard-parked earth for road drainage systems. The University of Nigeria had indeed become, quite literally, a construction yard!

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No doubt, it was as if the spittle had indeed foreshadowed pregnancy. Visible signs, yes; but beyond signs, a growing conviction that these early stirrings could mature into the quintuplets of transformation: infrastructural facelift, teaching and learning renaissance, moral rearmament, attitudinal reset, and institutional reinvention. But beyond the bricks and mortars, the reimagined senate meetings have become something else that can hardly escape recognition.

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Perhaps, nothing captured Simon’s refreshing innovation better than the Senate itself. For long, UNN Senate meetings bore the air of cerebral fatigue – mirthless and long-winding arguments, with seats arranged in higgledy-piggledy rows, roll calls that spiraled on like ancient litanies without any receipt of assured ‘stomach infrastructure’. But under Simon, the experience has been re-scripted. A senator now walks into the PAA with the quiet dignity of order. At the entrance, the clerk peers into a laptop, ticks attendance with digital precision, and hands over a meal ticket. No ‘dulling’, no confusion. Step into the hall, and behold: seats arranged alphabetically, each neatly strapped with a senator’s name lapel. No jostling for position, no misplaced egos. Just order – an academic parliament finally learning from the House of Commons.

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And then, midway through debates, as tempers rise and arguments sharpen, a whiff of aromatic buffet wafts across the hall, sending sumptious signals of culinary delicacies. Palates are teased; salivation ensued; appetites stirred. Suddenly, the rough edges of dry arguments softened. Even naturally cranky miens soft-pedaled, coarse voices lowered and haughty dispositions lost their spleen. The Senate edged quicker toward motion for adjournment, not from fatigue, but from the culinary seduction awaiting behind as Simon intermittently reminded senators that the buffet was getting cold o! And when adjournment was finally adopted, the feast began in earnest soon after a brief closing prayer by our ever-ready Reverend Father Professor. Who then, can doubt that Simon is working? Even the ever-growling stomachs, often neglected in matters of governance and hair-splitting academic debates, have been woven into the calculus of a Simon-driven transformation.

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However, in spite of all these rhetorical frills about culinary binge, it would make little sense to gloss over the real challenge of transition from rhetoric to reality. Of course, one must admit that oratory is easier performed than delivery. Nigeria is littered with the bones of fine speeches that never translated into meaty actions. But so far, Simon Ortuanya has shown signs of collapsing that dangerous gap between rhetoric and reality. His inaugural address was not empty flourish; it was a promissory note already being redeemed in visible installments. Here lies the true test of leadership – not to enthrall an audience for an afternoon but to sustain hope through tangible action. It is to ensure that the allegory of Mbe does not end with spittle in the dust, but with the safe delivery of quintuplets.

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At this juncture, we turn to the broader mantra conundrum. It is here that the interplay of Nigeria’s governance mantras comes full circle. Willie worked; yes, but his mantra was as much about continuity as it was about caricature. Tomorrow arrived with Peter, insisting that dividends could no longer be postponed but delivered with the urgency of ‘here and now’. And now, at Nsukka, ‘Simon is working’ – a parody-turned-truth, a bridge between political governance and academic administration. Together, these refrains remind us that mantras matter not because they sound good, but because they challenge leaders to embody their claim.

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And yet, hope must walk with caution. Universities are not mere construction sites; they are crucibles of knowledge, character, and national renewal. A Senate buffet may lubricate arguments, but what UNN needs more is the lubrication of integrity, scholarship, and vision. Roads may be patched, buildings resurrected, fuel stations revived, but unless the spirit of the Lion and the dignity of its den are restored, the rebirth will remain cosmetic. Still, in the balance of evidence, one must remain hopeful.

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As Nelson Mandela reminded us, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” In Ortuanya’s UNN, this weapon must not lie idle, for the battle is no longer with colonial masters but with poverty of vision, scarcity of ideas, poor work attitude, and the stasis of mediocrity. If Ortuanya holds true to this, UNN under his watch will not just be an ivory tower but a citadel of transformation, where the mythical Mbe learns to turn wit into wisdom, and spittle into a river of progress. For UNN, the real solution lies not just in speeches or spittle, but in an institutional culture, where excellence becomes second nature, and where transformation is no longer newsworthy but normative.

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Yet, as Kwame Nkrumah cautioned, “Practice without thought is blind; thought without practice is empty.” The new Vice Chancellor cannot afford one without the other: he must marry the visionary rhetoric of “Tomorrow is Here” with the grounded practice, which ensures that “Simon is Working” is more than a parody. That is the delicate balance UNN’s new helmsman must strike—where vision and action dance like the Mbekwu Okoshi and his wife’s bed-gymnastics, awkward yet strangely instructive, until parody becomes progress. And perhaps we may take comfort in the Yoruba wisdom that “However long the night, the dawn will break.” For if the mbe and his wife’s bed-gymnastics teach us anything, it is that awkward beginnings need not preclude fruitful outcomes. What matters is that the wit of the tortoise is not wasted on trickery but redirected toward transformation. Then parody will yield progress, spittle will dissolve into a Niger-Benue confluence, and UNN’s dawn will indeed break into a brighter day. Surely, the dawn of UNN’s rebirth may still be tentative, but if Ortuanya sustains the tempo, the scattered drops of promise will coalesces into an Atlantic that waters both the present and tomorrow.

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In conclusion, Prof Simon Ortuanya has begun well as the 16th Vice Chancellor of the ‘only University of Nigeria’. His spittle is visible. The signs are encouraging. The allegory of Mbe is alive. Whether the signs mature into pregnancy, and whether that pregnancy yields quintuplets of transformation, remains the story of the next five years. But for now, the applause is genuine, the hope palpable, and the faith alive that indeed, Simon is working. And if Willie worked, and tomorrow is here, then perhaps – just perhaps – UNN’s tomorrow is finally upon us today. To God be the glory! Ezechitoke eme o!

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Chris Agbedo (Ph.D), a Professor of Linguistics University of Nigeria,  Nsukka, Fellow, Netherlands  Institute for Advanced Study, Amsterdam, is a public affairs analyst.