The University of Abuja has lost accreditation in 14 out of its 45 courses, according to official documents seen by Daily Trust.
The university’s director of Centre for Distance Learning (CDL) Professor Siyan Peter has been removed and replaced with Professor Odumuh Theresa.
In a press conference on April 10, 2016, the Vice Chancellor Professor Michael Adikwu denied that the university has lost accreditation in key disciplines, hiring of 200 workers illegally and also denied that the CDL director was under probe over alleged diversion of funds only to remove
him on the day his denial was published on Monday last week.
The university’s deputy registrar information, Waziri Garba also denied the allegations in a letter to Daily Trust published on April 15, 2016.
After these denials, the vice chancellor contradicted himself yesterday in an interview with Daily Trust where he said by the time he took over, most courses were not accredited and those that were last accredited were as far back as 2005 and 2009.
On CDL director, he said he was sacked, saying “we didn’t send him away because of corruption… the only accusation was that there is a charging that is going on,” he said.
On recruitment, he said: “We recruited at various time, some were not by this administration, but they were only regularized, they were given what is called month to month basis (temporary) appointment and now what we did was to regularize it after two years they are now given what is called confirmation of appointment.”
The Federal Character Commission (FCC) has told Daily Trust it was not part of the process where the university converted casual staff to permanent staff as claimed by the vice chancellor.
The National Universities Commission (NUC) denied the accreditation as a result of 2014 audit of academic courses, an official document has shown.
The document, containing the status of all courses offered by the institution, showed that only 14 were fully accredited while 21 were given interim approval by the NUC and only 10 have full accreditation.
Courses that were denied accreditation by the NUC are Microbiology, Chemistry, Law, Mathematics Education, Integrated Science, Geography Education, Economics Education, Chemistry Education, Biology Education, Agricultural Education, Philosophy, Linguistics, English Language, and Accounting.
It was gathered that the courses were denied accreditation due to low staff strength, staff / students’ ratio and facilities such as classrooms, libraries.
The 21 courses with interim approvals are Business Management, Arabic Studies, Christian Religious Studies, History, Islamic Religious Studies, Theatre Arts, History Education, Social Studies, Chemical Engineering, Civil Eng, Electrical Eng, Mechanical Eng, Biology, Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, Statistics, Economics, Geography, Political Science, and Sociology.
In a letter to the vice chancellor dated March 26, 2014, NUC said the institution has been banned from admitting students into courses that were denied.
The letter signed by the deputy executive secretary of the commission, Professor C. F. Mafiana said interim accreditation is valid for two years and that programmes with interim status would be denied accreditation after two visits.
He said full accreditation is valid for a period of five years.
Source at the institution said the vice chancellor removed Peter as the director of the distance learning centre following the interim report of the committee constituted to investigate the alleged fraud.
An official document shows that 201 staff have been employed by the vice chancellor.
A breakdown of the employment showed that Benue state where the vice chancellor hails from had 33, Edo where the pro-chancellor of the university hails from had 8 and Plateau where the institution’s registrar is from had 10.
Further analysis of the recruitment showed that Abia state had 5, Adamawa 3, Akwa Ibom 4, Anambra 9, Bauchi 3, Borno 3, Cross River 2, Delta 7, Ekiti 2, Enugu 5, FCT 7, Gombe 4, Imo 8, Kaduna 5, Katsina 3, Kebbi 1, Kogi 19, Kwara 5, Nasarawa 10, Niger 2, Ogun 2, Ondo 3, Osun 5, Oyo 10, Rivers 6, Taraba 1, and Niger 1.
Analysis of the document shows that nobody was recruited from Bayelsa, Ebonyi, Jigawa, Yobe, Zamfara, Jigawa and Sokoto states.
In its reaction, the Federal Character Commission (FCC) said though University of Abuja obtained approvals for recruitment of some staff, there is no evidence to show that some of the staff recruited were casual employees.
The Special Assistant on Media to the FCC’s Executive Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu Idris, told Daily Trust on phone that the FCC was not representated at the interview to convert the casual workers to permanent staff.
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