27/09/2026
*OF HISTORICAL WATERSHEDS AND IMMORTALIZATION OF CATALYSTS IN THE RADIOGRAPHY PROFESSION IN NIGERIA*
By Tom Adejoh, PhD,
Bingham University, Karu, Nigeria; [email protected]
19th Sept., 2026
*Preamble:* A watershed is a historic dividing line that separates one distinct era from another. The emphasis is on the word ' *era.'*
Do watersheds happen by chance?
According to the most famous American poet of the 19th century, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882):
_"The heights reached and sustained by great men were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night."_
So, do watersheds come about by chance?
Do paradigm shifts just stroll in whimsically because of luck?
No! It is rather the output of intentional and sacrificial toiling by great minds.
And, when the watersheds arrive, it comes with a quantum leap of progress for all, not just the human catalysts. A quantum leap that makes the previous era akin to a child's play.
*Watersheds in our domain*
In the Radiography domain in Nigeria, have we had watersheds? Of course, yes.
As a Radiographer who has witnessed some modicum of history, and who - with all sense of humility and the mercies of God - has the singular courage to document my perspective of our history, I have the moral authority to declare that we've had watersheds in our journey, and our history. For the avoidance of doubt, I enrolled at UNN in 1998 and graduated in 2003 (without repeating).
And, talking about courage, that is what catalysts of watersheds have in common and surplus.
According to Brené Brown:
_"You can choose courage, or you can choose comfort, but you cannot choose both."_
It is also said that,
_"Fortune favours the bold."_
Today, we are hinting at catalysts of our watersheds because they chose courage over comfort; and the glow of our common tomorrow over temporary pecuniary personal interests.
*Obong Effiong Philip Akpan (1932 - 2016)*
👉There was a time when there was no single institution for the training of Radiographers anywhere in Nigeria. Would-be Radiographers went abroad for training or chose the low-hanging-fruit of being a technician trained on the job by foreign-trained Radiographers.
A Radiographer, an Ibibio from Ikono in Akwa Ibom State, and who was a Public Servant in Lagos refused to accept the status quo. He toiled, and he _"advocated courageously"_ like the Kenyan Radiographer - Moodi Mayienga - urged those on SORK virtual space recently to do.
Eventually the School of Radiography, Lagos (SRL) was born in 1962 with a hospital-based training. Not satisfied still, there was further advocacy by the catalyst and his generation until the Federal School of Radiography, Lagos (FSRL) came into being in November 1965. It was campus-based.
From that lone institution came Radiography programmes in others:
*A. 1st Generation*
i. Federal School of Radiography, Lagos (FSRL), 1965
ii. School of Radiography (SoR), UCH Ibadan, December 1972
*B. 2nd Generation*
iii. UNICAL, 1981
iv. UNN, 1983
*C. 3rd Generation*
v. UNIMAID, 2003
vi. NAU, 2004
vii. UNILAG, 2005
viii. BUK, 2008
*D. 4th Generation*
ix. UDUS, 2013
x. ABU, Evangel, GUU, UNIMED, FUTO, UNIBEN
xi. Other Universities: between 2021 - 2026
There are currently 66 Universities known to the writer that offer Radiography programmes.
Formal Radiography Training in Nigeria was a clear watershed. The catalyst was Obong Effiong Philip Akpan (1932 - 2016).
How old was he in 1965 when he became pioneer Principal of the FSRL? Just 33 years. The implication was that he spent his youth fighting for our today.
Brené Brown was right:
_"You can choose courage, or you can choose comfort, but you cannot choose both."_
How old was Obong E. P. Akpan in 1958 when he joined 9 other colleagues to form the Association of Radiographers of Nigeria (ARN) at Adeoyo Hospital in Ibadan? A mere 26 years!
How old was he when he led the ARN as the longest serving President between 1963 - 1974, and 1978 - 1980? Very young.
By 1959, talks for an International Society of Radiographers and Radiological Technologists (ISRRT) had begun. How old was Obong E. P. Akpan when the ARN partnered with 14 other national professional associations to formally give structure and direction to the ISRRT in 1962?
Besides, since 1962, only two Africans have been Presidents of ISRRT. The latest is Dr. Fozy Peer of South Africa (2010 - 2018). Guess the first? Obong E.P. Akpan (1989 - 1993)!
Promulgation of the decree setting up RRBN was in 1987 but practical activation of the agency was in 1989. A regulatory agency for us was another significant milestone. Guess one of the great minds behind the feat? The same Obong E.P. Akpan!
_"You can choose courage, or you can choose comfort, but you cannot choose both."_ - Brené Brown
Kudos to his generation for immortalizing him with a building at the Department of Radiography, UNILAG. Were it not for that building, his memory would have long been lost.
Obong Effiong Philip Akpan was a Radiographer like no other. But, in 2016
_"The man died.." -_ Woke Soyinka
Providence did not deny the Radiography profession of great minds; there were, and are, several. Note that as at 1987 the last of the tutors at SoR UCH Ibadan, had finally japa-ed to Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, and abandoned their students. So, the school shut down. Obong E. P. Akpan never japa-ed to anywhere.
*A negative watershed of dichotomy and slow progress*
Fast forward to the 2000s. UNICAL and UNN Radiography graduates will not be licensed to practice by RRBN unless they joined FSRL students to write Institute exams. It was an RRBN policy.
The graduates saw it as humiliation. They grumbled and bided their time. They agitated to the hearing of the K. K. Agwus, and the Kalu Ochies who had the burden of being their lecturers.
Then around 1999 they went into open rebellion and established Medical Imaging Society of Nigeria (MISON).
They refused to write any Institute exams and damned any consequences. Names like Ikenna Ubadigha of UNICAL, IKG Frank and Olisa Akukwe (deceased) both of UNN come to mind.
MISON got a Scheme of Service that re-designated UNICAL and UNN - trained Radiographers as Medical Imaging Scientists (MIS) and left Lagos/Ibadan colleagues as Radiography Assistants (AO).
That Scheme of Service gave the impression that DCR/DIR was an ordinary HND whereas it was a professional Diploma from London that was touted to be equivalent to a B.Sc degree in Nigeria.
The Federal Government did not accept that lateral equality between B.Sc and DCR/DIR. As a consequence, DIR holders were barred from the NYSC scheme in 2003, alongside any non-University- based qualifications.
Internship for Radiographers was also engineered by MISON in 2001. The University of Jos Teaching Hospital (JUTH) was the first to embrace the change and several UNN graduates had their internship there in 2001. It was also there that the title *Rad* was coined. MISON somehow managed to stop DIR from internship.
If MISON had restricted itself to mere emancipation for the profession without setting roadblocks and digging pits for DCR/DIR colleagues, Tom Adejoh would have become their member from day one and history as viewed from his lens would have been kinder to them.
All those mischiefs by MISON against the DCR/DIR Radiographers was an insult too deep and damaging. The victims were helpless. The RRBN then was helpless against MISON also. Everybody was helpless because MISON's headquarters was in the FCT Abuja. They had funds, connections, skills, and sympathy from the corridors of power whenever they tell people that
_"some Diploma holders who head our professional association and Board are forcing us, University graduates, to write their Diploma exams or no licence."_
As some of them told the writer in private conversations from 2018 - date, VIPs were their Ultrasound, CT, MRI and Radiotherapy patients in Abuja. They simply made requests and they were granted without a double check with RRBN or the ARN.
The arrival of MISON diminished the ARN significantly and made commitment an affair of DCR/DIR. The advent of MISON whittled down the little influence that the RRBN had then.
A parallel professional association in a profession that was struggling for visibility, stability and relevance was a huge setback to the profession.
*High Chief Reuben SJ Babatunde*
The rebellion by MISON was a daily worry to anyone who cared about cohesion and unity of purpose for the Radiography profession.
The elders of ARN led by Chief Abara who was the ARN President then decided to appeal to the Federal Government to constitute a Governing Board (GB) for the RRBN. The government acceded to their request.
The GB on its part wanted decorum, cohesion, stability, unity of purpose, rapid growth and productivity for the Radiography profession. They went searching and brought in the first substantive Registrar, a SoR, UCH Ibadan-trained Radiographer. He was reputed by his contemporaries to demonstrate exceptional brilliance, sufficient personal integrity, pedigree in student unionism, and who had the courage of his conviction.
Enter High Chief RSJ Babatunde.
He hit the ground running. Exams for UNICAL and UNN graduates was re-designed. This time, only the RRBN Registrar or his representative went as a Professional Examiner to oversee whatever UNICAL and UNN did. No more sitting for the Institute's exams before licensing.
That strategy doused tension in the B.Sc clan. Nonetheless, MISON had gone too far and had become too strong to disband.
The new Registrar did not confront MISON head-on; he tried to repair damages instead.
To that effect, he got DIR into the internship programme effective from 2002. His strategy was to write to hospitals advising where B.Sc and DIR were to be placed - HATISS 7.
He also started labouring to produce a unified Scheme of Service and that finally came to be in 2012. That Scheme affirmed our designation as *Radiographers* and aligned our nomenclature with the larger global Radiography family (ISRRT).
Licensing was enforced and Radiographers who had been unlicensed for years were re-captured from hiding. It is easy to know such radical Protestants from their RRBN number which appears recent away from their generation.
Diploma in Radiography (DIR) was halted in 2005 and the minimum standards for entry into the Register of Practitioners became B.Sc/B.Rads.
The vestige of that DIR was the FSRL, a beautiful environment. It was handed over to UNILAG as its Department of Radiography.
Rather than just UNICAL and UNN producing ≤ 40 Radiographers annually, more Universities were intentionally approached and those who keyed into our nudging were UNIMAID, NAU, UNILAG, BUK, and UDUS.
When Chief RSJ Babatunde left office in 2012, the Universities rested too until 2017. In the interim Registrarship tenure of Rad Chidiebere Thaddeus, they woke up again and hit the ground running with ABU, Evangel, GUU, UNIMED, and FUTO.
These days, Universities no longer require our goodwill to commence the programme. It is when they start that they start crying for lecturers, to no avail.
Annually ≥ 1000 Radiography graduates are injected into the pool.
Continuing Professional Development was popularized by the new-era RRBN of Chief RSJ, although the template was the copyright of the ARN.
Physical infrastructure for Radiography that added to our dignity and visibility appeared in Lagos. He spent a few million Naira to sandfill and abandoned waterlogged area in a government estate, and built structures that became the cynosure of all eyes.
Holders of DCR/DIR were given opportunity to convert to B.Sc from Queen Margaret's University in UK. Many of those who delayed or refused to act fast and operated in hostile facilities, retired as Chief Radiographer rather than as Director.
Clear training and certification in ultrasound, Radiotherapy, Nuclear Medicine became more organized with JUTH becoming out Ultrasound training school and National Hospital, Abuja as our Radiotherapy training school.
There are more feats but let's stop here.
What is important is that the new-era RRBN championed by High Chief RSJ Babatunde was a watershed. The tenure of RSJ brought Radiography from obscurity to limelight.
*Chidiebere Thaddeus*
In the very brief period Chief Thaddeus Chidiebere acted as RRBN Registrar (2017 - 2018) he brought the ARN and MISON to a common venue and our quarrel was resolved for good.
The original strategy came from his classmate, one Dr. Polycarp Okoye (1998 graduate of UNN) based in Port Harcourt. Dr Okoye suggested a _Think Tank for Radiography (TTR)._
Tom Adejoh and Dr. Felix Erondu were Secretary and Chairman, respectively. Past RRBN Registrars were there. Past ARN Presidents were there. An NYSC member and an intern were also there to represent the youths. North, Southwest, Southeast, and Southsouth were there too. Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, Ibibio and others were there. It was a carefully selected membership.
The MISONites were asked to protest if they did not want Dr. Erondu and Adejoh to remain as selected. They gave the nod of acceptance and deliberations continued in earnest, both on cyberspace and physically in Lagos and Abuja.
The TTR was self-funding. The Treasurer was Rad Ifeoma Ikete, a MISONite. It is said that she got her famous and unique *Amazing Amazon* name from Elder Pst. Wole Adeoye during TTR assignment.
Infact, a surplus of over a N1m remains yet to be expended by the TTR.
Chief Chidiebere deserves huge commendation for creating an enabling environment to move ARN-MISON from the ugly route of enmity to a fragrant one of amity.
After then MISON in Abuja transformed into ARN Abuja Chapter in 2018. And, there has been perpetual succession ever since with Rad Emmanuel Ngwu being the pioneer Chairman. The writer monitored the election in his capacity as VP II cm coordinator of ARN Branches then.
*Professor Keneth Kalu Agwu*
There was a hint of UNICAL and UNN being pioneers of Radiography education, right?
What was not said then was that they were almost as good as written off. UNICAL lost all her Radiography lecturers to the japa syndrome and students were also abandoned to their fate, just like their counterparts in SoR, Ibadan.
In UNN, the last to japa was Elder CT Utin. He started the department in 1983 and he lingered till 1996 when he reached his elastic limit of japa pressure.
He went to USA to learn a new and rare skill of Echocardiography. When he finally returned about 15 years later, he set up an Echo-Card training Institute in Uyo, from where he keeps blessing the professional with skill impartation to younger colleagues.
The Akwa Ibom-born elder is the only japa-da that went to get a rare skill and returned to add value to us, to the best of the writer's knowledge.
Pause. In retrospect, the Radiography lecturers in our Universities today are by far more contented and patriotic than those of the past.
One can count - with difficulty - those who left the miserable salary in Nigeria for the gold abroad. I think that that shift in attitude needs a pause and ponder. Ponder! Appreciate them.
At the UNN, only one sacrificial lamb was left to suffer alone and carry the future of Radiography education on his head - Mr. Kenneth Kalu Agwu (as he then was). He had an M.Sc from UK.
Despite being seriously tempted to also leave, he chose to stay because of his love for the future of the profession.
He suffered and gave a helping hand to UNICAL. He suffered more trying to resuscitate UNN. From 1996 - 2026 (30 years), the difference is clear: 66 Universities, 93 PhD holders, over 250 Master's degree, 19 full professors, and 6 universities offering Postgraduate programmes.
Worthy of note too is increase from one professional journal to five, from no textbook by Radiographers to over 10 titles collectively (Profs Agwu, Ochie, Erondu, Dlama Joseph; Drs Ogolodom, Adejoh, Akhigbe, Nwokorie; and Rad Sikiru Ganiyu).
Through one man who chose to stay and suffer, the destiny of the Radiography profession changed.
That survival and explosion of training institutions and training capacity and intellectual resources was a watershed. Prof. K. K. Agwu holds the trophy for that.
*Prof. Felix Erondu*
But there was another watershed that came with Dr. Erondu. He was our first B.Sc Radiographer to earn PhD (2001). It was in Medical Physics, a course deeply integrated into Radiography.
Remember that as at 2000 Pharmacy, MLS, Physiotherapy, Optometry, and Nursing already had Professors but Radiography had only 2 PhD holders in Management (Drs. Ike Oze and Augustine Okaro - who lectured at UNN). What about Prof K. K. Agwu? He got his PhD in 2007 and was subsequently elevated to professorship - our first - in 2008.
Dr. Felix Erondu's PhD was delightsome. It was a pointer to the possibilities that lay ahead for other younger Radiographers. His PhD aided our visibility and gave us a voice in the radiation medicine domain in Nigeria.
The Erondu generation somehow managed to learn how to do ultrasound scan procedures. With that knowledge they launched into entrepreneurship. A few notable names are Chyke Ohuegbe, Felix Erondu, Olagunju, Victor Ehughi...
Dr Erondu boldly went on to start a kind of entrepreneurship that reported his own images at a time we were derided by detractors as 'technicians' specializing in _'breathe in and out.'_
He didn't stop there. Chief RSJ Babatunde discovered his immense intellectual fecundity and productivity and recommended him as RRBN Chairman (2004 - 2007).
As a modern-day RRBN Board chairman, and working alongside the highly insightful and resourceful RSJ Babatunde and his mentor, K. K. Agwu, the intellectual policies that drive the profession were engineered in their era.
It was also in the era of Prof Erondu that Radiographers started talking to a wider public audience at conferences home and abroad (ISRRT, PACORI, etc).
Prof Erondu is the poster boy of the current Radiographer: highly educated, entrepreneurial, visible, vibrant, well dressed, bold, and inspires hope. Prof Erondu's ascendancy is a watershed.
*Upcoming watershed*
The profession should keenly watch Prof. Dlama Zira Joseph. The young man has the seed of greatness in him and he has started making us proud. He is highly resourceful.
He became a Professor at lightning speed. By the way, check his research metrics on Google Scholar and you will see that he is an intellectual guru.
He has the distinction of being the first and only one amongst us to be a Governing Council member in a University (Federal), and also a Director of a high caliber centre/institute in a University still.
He also gave the Radiography profession its first Faculty of Radiography, and its first College of Radiography... He has been Dean also, a distinguished position enjoyed only by Profs Kenneth K. Agwu, Christian C. Nzotta, Charles U. Eze; and Drs Livinus C. Abonyi, and Ulu O. Ulu.
In the whole non-MBBS clan in Nigeria, Prof. D.Z. Joseph retains the distinction as our first Provost.
Indeed,
_"You can choose courage, or u can choose comfort, but you cannot choose both"_
*Immortalization*
According to Horatius Bonar (1808 - 1889),
_We shall fade away from this earth and its toiling, only to be remembered by what we have done._
Catalysts for historical watersheds should be celebrated, and remembered as the writer has attempted to do, and then immortalized.
Immortalization does not add a dime to their pocket, but it is a totem of appreciation to their memory for blessing us with a quantum leap of progress. It also embellishes the idea that
_"There is a prize for the price of heroism."_ - Tom Adejoh
Obong E.P. Akpan was immortalized by his generation in his lifetime.
I urge you, my dear colleagues and contemporaries, to lend your goodwill and voice to the clamour that Prof. K. K. Agwu and Chief RSJ Babatunde should be immortalized via our facility in Lagos.
Thank you.
*Bibliography*
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325658631_An_Inquest_into_the_Quests_and_Conquests_of_the_Radiography_Profession_in_Nigeria
RSJ Babatunde: Unexposed Legacy (2013). Everything Radiography, 2(1):8-9, 19 - 20
