PROFESSOR DAVE NOSA OMOKARO
– AN EXAMPLARY INTELLECTUAL.
A TRIBUTE BY PROFESSOR PRINCEWILL I. ALOZIE,
LAGOS STATE UNIVERSITY OJO, LAGOS STATE.
Professor Dave Nosa Omokaro, who suddenly left the human circle recently, was a Professor of Botany known amongst his intellectual peers nationally and internationally.
He pursued the study and dissemination of relevant details in Botany and indeed in the life sciences with zeal. His students at various levels and the young intellectuals he mentored will testify to this fact. With a charming but unassuming personality, Professor Dave Omokaro used the penetrating insights from his studies in science to examine issues in humanities and the science. When discussing Edo and Yoruba history, you may mistake him for a History Professor. When he is discussing national developmental issues, you may think his field of study is either Economics or Sociology of the radically leftist school.
Professor Dave Omokaro worked very closely with renowned Professor Hillary. I. Inyang, a Duke Energy distinguished Professor and Director, Global Institute for Energy. Dave Omokaro was one of the three Nigerian intellectuals who functioned in the sensitive but important committee of the West African Research and innovation Management Association. The other two came from the University of Ibadan, and the University of Port-Harcourt, respectively. The very economically viable research findings with his research partner Professor Ani Nkang, published as “Reclamation of Eroded Z|ones by Using Woody Species”, remain like most research findings in Nigeria, as paper work that may be utilized by appreciative foreign powers for their countries.
Professor Dave Omokaro’s detribalized and charming sterling qualities earned him two full tenures as the Dean of Graduate School, University of Calabar. The same qualities saw him emerge as the Chairman, Committee of Deans of Graduate Schools in Nigerian Universities. He revolutionized the University of Calabar Graduate School and left indelible marks. As the chairman, Committee of Deans of Graduate Schools in Nigeria, Professor Dave Omokaro consistently called on the Nigerian Government and organized the public sector to fund graduate research.
In the numerous national and international conferences Dave Omokaro attended, he usually found space to talk of funding of education and research. This partly explains his unflinching support for the Academic staff Union of Universities’ (ASUU) struggle for adequate funding of education. He taught his lessons with commitment and zeal.
Funding of education and academic research are taken for granted in technologically advanced countries. The United States of America, Russia and China are maintaining their positions among the comity of nations today, partly because of the reward from investment on education and research.
When the rapid rise of china as a super-power is discussed, one point that is not often emphasized is that universal education in China, before their full-blown capitalist approach to economics and governance, made incorporation and competition in a globalized capitalist world possible. Even now, when the capitalist system is under threat from self-generated internal contradiction and when the minority elite within the capitalism is holding under bondage, the majority of world population and the environment in the interest of profit, funding of research in science and technology, is still on the front burner.
It is true today that the profit motive and the reaction to the mounting criticism of the ruling elite in the capitalized world is leading to curtailing of funding in education and health services. This route is also a sure route to the collapse of the capitalist system. Developing countries, or rather impoverished neo-colonial countries, can ill afford to under-fund qualitative education and research.
We have seen how surrogate leaders or the elite of some pauperized African countries rush to countries that had invested in education and research for health, food, private energy generation and national defense services. The logic for the ultimate survival of the ruling elites in the neo-colonial countries like Nigeria demands that there should be very heavy investment in education and research. Migration to industrialized countries and acquisition of foreign citizenship would be discovered in possibly tragic ways, not to be the solution to the messing up of the respective polities. This type of reasoning probably underlies Professor Dave Omokaro’s harping on education and funding of research in Nigerian educational and research institutions.
On specific intellectual discipline, Professor Dave Omokaro consciously chose Botany. Botany which belongs to life sciences is sometimes referred to as plant Biology, or plant science. Broadly perceived, it is the aspect of science that studies the form, function, uses of plants and their interaction with the biosphere. It is common knowledge that some students reluctantly take to Botany for the simple reason that they are unable to be admitted into socially prestigious medical schools. Such reluctant students of botany and indeed a large portion of Nigeria’s population are oblivious of the fact that Botany is a cardinal element with Chemistry, in Health Sciences {Medicine, Pharmacy, Medical biochemistry etc.}. Herbal medicine owes a lot to botany.
The Chinese, for instance, have successfully fused Chinese traditional and herbal medical practice with the orthodox western-oriented approach.
It could intrigue a medical student to learn that quite a number of botany courses resemble courses in the medical school. While medical schools will be emphasizing zoological and human aspects of reality, the botanists will be emphasizing that of plants. The difficulties in classifying some organisms as plants or animals have led to the evolution of microbiology or molecular biology. Molecular biology is in turn, closely linked with physics and chemistry. The botanist in training will invariably study cell theory, plant anatomy {comparative}, cytology, plant physiology, plant morphology, plant genetics, plant pathology, taxonomy, plant geography, genetic engineering and quite more.
Technologically advanced countries take the study of botany very seriously, since they correctly see the link this has with food production, medicine, technology and economic endeavours. Obviously, there must be a number of plants in our communities that ought to be identified and studied for possible uses to humankind.
Botanists, biotechnologists and biochemists are needed to guide the Nigerian population on the benefits and dangers of massive consumption of genetically modified organisms. We are aware that Europeans and Indians are kicking against the dumping of genetically modified organisms as food in their geographic space because of the possible harm to society .For us here in Nigeria and elsewhere, tomatoes, oranges, apples, beans, maize, soyabeans, are not differentiated between natural organically grown and genetically modified types. Professor Dave Omokaro’s constant call for funding of research, if heeded, will enable Nigeria find its feet among the comity of nations. The place of botany in society is becoming very glaring now that we are increasingly advised by knowledgeable health practitioners to consume more of plant based foods in order to boost our immune system.
Professor Dave Omokaro would have wished Nigeria developed botanical gardens in Nigeria, approximating the ones in Kew or in Pisa in variety. His modest home in Calabar has the imprint of a botanist.
There are some difficulties in assessing Professor Dave Omokaro’s world-view. These difficulties arise from the fact that Professor Dave Omokaro was a fervent Christian and a fervent botanist. Evolutionism and creationism are two contending
world-views in botany. Advances in modern science, including forays in genetic engineering, appear to have silenced creationism as a veritable philosophical contender. Indeed, the creation story from various religious traditions, do have numerous questionable assertions. Similarly, there are a number of unsolved and insoluble problems in science. These gaps in our knowledge base make it imperative for people to be exceedingly tolerant in matters philosophical.
On a number of occasions, I had questioned Professor Dave Omokaro and the equally amiable and erudite wife on the essence of Christian religious faith in a country where Christian leaders are also leaders in economic and political roguery. A number of them carry the Bible in one hand and arsenal for despoiling the populace in the other hand. Their responses on such occasions were spontaneous and similar. They tell me that Jesus Christ is the symbol and ideal. If that is the case, I reasoned, the world will be a better place. The Bible did not inform us of any economic sabotage by Christ. Christ loved the poor; was against exploitation by the strong of the weak; healed the sick; did not amass personal wealth; lived and died for others. This settled my religious dispute with the Omokaro family. What is yet to be addressed is why you have about five percent of people professing Christianity, not aiming at Christ’s life pattern. This same question goes to our Muslim brothers and sisters who despoil the nation economically but dole insignificant gifts to the destitute they have created. They do not aim to live like the prophet Mohammed. What is becoming increasingly clear today is that the wretchedness of the human condition of the impoverished nations is of human creation.
Human beings will have to rectify the problems existing in our unjust socio-economic world order. Some passages in the book BEYOND DREAMS by Dr {Mrs.} Emem Omokaro suggest that human beings have to be active participants of social change.
Professor Dave Omokaro holds strong political views, although he is not usually noisy about his views. His political views are progressive and people-oriented. He understands the class nature of society and the relationship between economics, politics and social change. In this regard, he shares some points with some living legends in Botany like Professor Toye Olorode of Obafemi Awolowo University and Professor Bene Madunagu of the University of Calabar, who see ultimate reality from dialectical materialist standpoint.
The professor in the life science had a harmonious family life. The wife Dr. Emem Omokaro, is a sociologist, whose Ph.D dissertation was adjudged the best in the country during her year of graduation. She had been best and first in so many other aspects of human endeavour. She is passionate about care of the elderly and retired persons in the society. She is self employed and is into business. In addition to all these, she has time to write. Her recent book BEYOND DREAMS, is regarded in several knowledgeable quarters as a masterpiece. Given the sterling and charming qualities of the couple, it is not clear to me who attracted the other. The marriage resulted in the birth of two illustrious children. Mr. Uyi Omokaro is a graduate in economics. He is therefore in the social sciences with the mother and is also self employed. As a matter of fact, he now employs people. At his age, he should be regarded as a successful business man. Their daughter, Miss Osarieme Omokaro, is currently pursuing her Ph.D degree in Computer Science in the United States of America. Here too, she joined her father in the science discipline. By any standard, The Professor Dave Omokaro family could be considered as a model family.
Nigeria, Africa and the world have lost a person who could help in improving the messy condition that abounds now. Your friends, associates and more importantly your family, will miss your physical presence. Your works and influence will continue to flourish. I think that what is important is how effective and well one lives, not necessarily how long life is. Professor Dave Nosa Omokaro was indeed an exemplary scholar.
