ASUP Federal Polytechnic Offa Laments N500m Accreditation Fraud

The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), Federal Polytechnic Offa branch, has accused the institution’s management of inflating the cost of an upcoming departmental accreditation exercise.

The union alleged that the budgeted amount, put at N500 million, is excessive and unjustifiable.

In a statement on Monday, ASUP chairman Dr. Idowu Atilola described the expenditure as “accreditation fraud,” citing a memo from the Director of Academic Planning, Dr. Waheed Oyelola Balogun, to the Rector as evidence of the alleged irregularities.

“In this memo, the Director of Academic Planning was requesting N507,945,395 for the accreditation of 21 departments. The union’s insistence on being included in accreditation exercises is further justified by some of the unbelievable propositions as conspicuously spelt out in this memo. Of particular interest are these: The accreditation of 33 departments under Dr Kamoru Kadiri in 2023/2024 was said to have cost about N50,000,000. The Heads of Departments that will be going through the hurdle of the accreditation exercise are proposed to be only given N100,000, while N200,000 was allocated to deans who are supervisors. It must be noted that the deans and HODs are to get N7,200,000 from the over N500,000,000 in the proposal,” the union chairman further disclosed.

Dr Atilola argued that the monies allocated are unreasonably outrageous, alleging that “N50,000,000 was allocated to the Management and N20,000,000 allocated to the Governing Council.” He further disclosed that “another memo from the rector to the governing council also came to our knowledge in which the rector requested the same amount that the Director of Academic Planning proposed.”

ASUP alleged “the memos are unequivocal conspiracies by the Rector (Kamoru Kadiri) and Director of Academic Planning (Waheed Balogun) to siphon money from the polytechnic coffers, which consequently would be reasons for the continued degeneration of our institution when public funds are being carted away with such unequalled impunity.”