A group of ex-students of Yakubu Gowon University, formerly known as University of Abuja, has expressed outrage over the granting of amnesty to students caught in examination malpractices.
It also called for the immediate resignation of the Vice Chancellor of the institution, Professor Lar Patricia Manko, and dissolution of the institution’s senate. The Concerned Alumni of the University of Abuja bared their minds in a press statement issued yesterday and jointly signed by Mohammad Usman and Oluwaseun Akintola.
The alumni expressed mortification at the news, saying to the best of their knowledge, amnesty had never been granted to students caught cheating during examinations. The concerned alumni expressed concern that, at a time when the school’s rating had dipped among Nigerian universities, the current action by the senate, chaired by the vice chancellor, would completely make it “nothing more than a glorified secondary school”.
“We were more ashamed by the press statement issued and signed by the university’s Acting Director of Information and University Relations, Dr Habib Yakoob, struggling in lies, to convince Nigerians that the decision was taken in good faith and was not politically motivated or targeted at any specific group,” the statement said. They noted that after speaking with many lecturers enraged over the action, they resolved that it was a decision taken in the interest of powerful politicians who were caught cheating during the examination and punished by disciplinary panels.
The concerned alumni insisted that there was more to it than met the eye, noting the defence and explanations made by the Acting Director of Information and University Relations further heightened suspicion in the minds of Nigerians. They wondered why the names of the students granted amnesty were kept secret and the haste to grant amnesty to the erring students just about a month before the expiration of the tenure of the acting vice chancellor.
They also sought to know the terms of the amnesty arrangements for the expelled or rusticated students, wondering whether they would collect certificates and go, or come and rewrite the examinations they had been caught cheating in. “Some of those caught and expelled students who took the university to court and lost at the high court, and the cases are now at the appeal court. Is the institution not shooting itself in the foot? Why is the education minister, Dr Maruf Olatunji Alausa and the National Universities Commission very silent over the matter? Are they accomplices? Why did the shameful amnesty only cover offences committed between the 2020/2021 academic year and the first semester of the 2024/2025 session? Why this selected period? Who are the special erring students in the period? Again, we demand to know”.
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