By Njide Ezeonyejiaku/Obiorah Edogor
The two-year Stewardship of the Prof. Ogugua Victoria Chinelo Ikpeze administration as the 14th Dean, Faculty of Law, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, has been described as not only eventful but innovative.
Prof. Ogugua V. C. Ikpeze, the 2nd female Dean of Law Faculty, UNIZIK assumed office on 13th November, 2022, and by the time she concluded her tenure on 4th December, 2024, the Faculty of Law, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka was wearing a new look in both structures and human capital development.
On assumption of duty, her vision and mission were audacious: “to promote absolute peace, all-round progress of the teaching and non-teaching staff, as well as to ensure extensive structural development of the Faculty”.
“The faculty needed some essential structural projects, and I immediately started mobilizing our Alumni to assist us in building one like the Faculty Auditorium, hoping that the University will also assist us,” she noted.
Prof. Ogugua Ikpeze’s score card after two years in office was a litany of success stories that brought a total turnaround of the human capacity building and improved structural projects in the Faculty of Law, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka.
She motivated her staff and students to attend conferences both locally and internationally, and they came back with enhanced knowledge as well as laurels in international competitions in Ghana and Kenya.
Prof Ikpeze’s legacies in the Faculty are clearly captured in a 15-point achievement, including sinking a functional solar-powered borehole, the first of its kind in any Faculty within UNIZIK; digitalizing the Faculty for e-learning to the extent that lectures, exams and external defence can hold, online, with ease from all parts of the world.
“The digitalization of the Faculty is my greatest innovation as the Dean, Faculty of Law, because we are now read and accessed globally,” Prof. Ikpeze announced.
It is on record that Prof. Ogugua V. C. Ikpeze got the University Senate’s approval for four new Departments in the Faculty, which are: Human Rights, Clinical Legal Education, Customary and Religious, and Public Law Departments, which are now fully functional.
She graduated 129 candidates at postgraduate level including Masters and Doctors of Philosophy. She equally got approval for the Institute for Human Rights and Development to be housed at the Faculty of Law, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka which will be running six months Certificate Courses.
Apart from the general facelift of the Faculty building, other significant achievements of the immediate past Dean, Faculty of Law, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Prof. Ogugua Ikpeze was the Faculty coming as the 5th in Nigerian Universities whose candidates graduated with First Class Honours at the Nigerian Law School; as well as the successful organisation of the first Faculty of Law International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, AI in 2024, among others too numerous to mention.
As we congratulate her for a job exceedingly well done, we wish her success in her future endeavours because this appears to be just the beginning of many more good works ahead for the erudite professor, whose specialty cuts across Human Rights Law, Environmental Law and Constitutional Law, a Life Bencher, former Chairperson, FIDA, Anambra State Chapter and an active member of the Nigerian Bar Association, who occupied three different strategic offices at different times, including 2nd Assistant General Secretary, NBA (2002-2004), National Treasurer, NBA (2006-2008), 3rd National Vice President, NBA, (2010-2012), among other leadership positions.
Prof. Ogugua V.C. Ikpeze is happily married to Prof. Christian Okechukwu Ikpeze, a Consultant Gynecologist, and current President, Society of Obstetrics and Gynecologist of Nigeria, SOGON, and her marriage is blessed with lovely children.
