Immediately I left the chaotic town of Lagos for the serene University town of Port Harcourt (yes, let’s shake that table!), I could not wait to go back to school. A year after my arrival, I applied for a PhD at the prestigious University of Port Harcourt. It was a surprise to me that I got bounced after my proposal. I was not too surprised given that my supervisor at the office had been part of the panel. When I told him I was going to apply he asked me “Are you sure you will have time to conduct a research?” Research means you would have to be ready to contribute to the body of knowledge, he emphasized. He said this knowing how challenging my role at the time was. He was right, I honestly did not think I could do any research at that time. This was because my job was so tasking and challenging that a couple of days I took over, I had called a friend of mine narrating my dilemma and sort opinion on how I could regret the job.
Four years later, I saw another advert in PUNCH and that is one of the reasons I like hard copies. The advert said two years and that was the attraction, the other been the reference to the fact that the program was World Bank sponsored. I had given up hope after the November 2016 date the school was to get back to us passed, but it was “Hope reborn” by May 2017 when the invitation arrived. The World Bank centre of excellence program is a hundred and fifty million dollars fund targeted at developing manpower across Africa with twenty centres and eight of those are in Nigeria! I understand it has been scaled up now.
Once we got on with it, my strategy was clear; blocked my weekends for research, made a couple of friends out of the about 70 class mates made up of various disciplines from different countries around Africa including, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya. Made sure my cycle included those teaching in the school in order to be close to the details of the requirements. The discipline to keep to the schedule of the work program was key. The first phase of the work was reading past work in the area of study. For that reason I read about two to three papers each of the research days. I summarized them in my own words and listed same in a table. After that, it was easy to write the literature review section of the work, identifying gaps and ready to do something about them. As trivial as this sounds, the strategy ensured the plagiarism test was below 5% to the surprise of my mates. Most interesting was that my supervisor commented that “I understood the subject!” If you know my supervisor you will understand that it is not easy to earn his acknowledgement but when it comes you can head to the bank with it.
So it turns out that the main reason I suspect the program kept to schedule unlike what obtains in conventional Nigerian universities is because “aka world bank di ya” (world bank involvement). More so, the fact that it was a batch program meant seminars could be arranged easily for the group.
The program offered me a great opportunity to network and self develop in my area of work. There was price to pay; like being away from family and friends but it was all worth it. Favour was also on my side. I worked for a firm that supports such self development. Like I told a couple of colleagues, 60 to 70% of the work was about finding data and we are all sitting on data! In fact I posited that most of the work they had done qualify for a PhD, only that they then need to meet the “other” requirements while not forgetting “character and learning”.
There were some ups and downs, like running out of ideas. For that, you just keep at it and will be surprised how fresh anointing comes upon you with fresh ideas and persistence. A major down was when my work was stood down close to graduate school defense. My supervisor had earlier complained to me about how difficult it was getting for him to give his students feedback. I consoled him and told him he needed to keep at it no matter if the student was hurt at the hard truth. Little did I know the hard truth was going to be my portion some day. But I took it in good faith and told him I had a friend I learnt something about disappointments from. This guy will always jump at any disappointment as if he won a lottery. Somehow Ihemba as I call him sees the silver lining in such disappointments. So I used that technique and manned up to the challenge ahead knowing it was for the best. Within a month, I turned things around and gained the acknowledgement and satisfaction of my supervisor. Looking back it would not have been fair to have had him approve my work when he was not satisfied.
And so you can imagine how it felt when the associate dean of school of graduate studies faced me and said, “You have been recommended for the award of a doctor of philosophy….” (not sure I heard the rest!). The import of that statement donned on me when I learnt that another guy that had his own external defense that morning failed.
There are so many reasons to go for a PhD and a lot of funding available too; if you find yours please grab it.
Sunday 16th February 2020Obidike Peter wrote from www.peterobidike.comand This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Post script
And it so happened that the PhD certificate was signed within 24 hrs of the release of my first self published work “Aladinma; eighties to nineties, a reconnect”
And someone will tell me double portion miracles don’t exist!
Good news; Aladinma my first self published work got released 23rd July. Find it on Amazon, Barnesandnobles and other webstores. If you are in Nigeria you can also contact me via email or phone to order a copy on your behalf and have it Autographed
