Meet Former UNIPORT VC Who Now Lives In Abject Poverty

A former vice chancellor at the University of Port Harcourt who served as an academic for 37 years is now reportedly living a wretched life in Lagos after retiring from his university job.

Prof Theo Vincent is said to be living in the Ilaje area of Lagos, a slum area notorious vices and unhygienic housing condition. His residence is at the down floor of a two storey apartment in the community.

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According to The Punch, the professor of English is now visually impaired and is a far cry from what one would expect from a university don. His condition is deteriorating and his blindness is not helping matters.

Prof. Theo Vincent’s house / Credit: The Punch

The street where the prof lives / Credit: The Punch

Dr. Chris Anyokwu, a lecturer at the University of Pot Harcourt lamented the current condition of the popular school. He said that it was shameful that the professor had spiraled down that way and nothing had been done to help him.

“The fact that a former vice-chancellor of a Federal University should end up the way Prof. Theo Vincent has done — a visually-challenged and dirt-poor recluse, shorn of friends, relatives and subsisting on charity in utter obscurity — begs questions and confounds the imagination.

“Whatever the cause or causes of his ordeal and his tragic situation, every conscientious Nigerian must do his or her best to rehabilitate and integrate him into polite society to which he naturally belongs.

“The search for the whys and wherefores of his present condition is unnecessary. There is an urgent need to save Vincent, who is an icon of sorts, and to redeem the sullied image of the Nigerian Ivory Tower.”

Prof Vincent however rejected any feeling of sympathy towards him. According to The Punch, the scholar insisted that sympathy will not allow him deal with his disability.

“I don’t want to be made a subject of sympathy from other people. So let us talk about literature or something else. I know that I have a disability, but talking about it won’t help. The important thing is to cope with the situation and to keep praying.”

The professor, who was one of the scholars that helped to set up the NLNG prize for literature in Nigeria was said to have been forced out of the apartment he had lived for up to 40 years as an academic staff after his retirement which was reported to be due to the loss of his sight.

An anonymous source said: “He was more or less ejected from the flat. Nobody knew where he moved to for a while, until we heard that an unnamed Christian organisation or church somewhere around Akoka had intervened and relocated him to a new apartment in the neighbourhood.”

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The place where the professor lives was made available by a church. The professor who is said to be living a solitary life and rarely receives visitors. In spite of his condition, he is said to still clinging to his desire for writing.

“Even in my condition, I have finished writing the book. What remains is to clean it up. Unfortunately, I cannot do that now because of my disability,” He said

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