Permit me to start by commending the courage of the Visitor ATBU cum President, Muhammadu Buhari, in fighting corruption which has been so embedded in the Nigerian society. The iconic Czar deserves all the support needed to tame the monster in all its ramifications.
To start with, I wish to use this medium to draw the attention of Mr. President to the goings-on at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), Bauchi, where he is the Visitor. The ATBU is known all over the federation for its zero tolerance to exams malpractice and all other vices until the recent past. This is the only university known to me in the history of Nigeria where a son of the then serving vice-chancellor of the institution was expelled alongside a son of the then serving Rector of the Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi, due to exams malpractice cases involving the duo.
However, the core value which has won respect for the citadel of learning appears to have been thrown to the dog with the coming of the current registrar of this prestigious institution as exemplified by his selectivity in punishing staff as well as issuance of queries indiscriminately even where they are not necessary.
A very bad precedent was set recently and all efforts to make the university management to do the needful has remained an illusion. On February 7, 2017 I wrote a letter asking the head of Department of Accounting and Finance about the pending case of exams malpractice concerning one of the students with the following registration number (07/21423D/5), who was issued his statement of result after I left for my PhD programme in Malaysia in 2011.
The head of department asked me to write to the Dean which I did on February 8, 2017. But the Dean offered explanation which I considered inadequate. This made me to write to the vice chancellor dated March 6, 2017, asking him to form a committee to further investigate the matter. After sometime the committee was not set up which made me to write another letter to the vice chancellor dated April 10, 2017, giving him a seven-day ultimatum within which an action must commence. The committee was eventually constituted and I was invited to appear before it on May 3, 2017 to state my case. The case was investigated. However, rather than taking action against the alleged perpetrators of the malpractice, they were instead rewarded with promotion to the ranks of Associate Professors and professors amidst the crisis.
I wrote yet another later to the vice-chancellor dated July 11, 2017 reminding him of the need to act on the committee’s recommendation within the next seven days, hoping that they did justice, failing which I would inform the University Council about the matter. After I received no response, I wrote a letter to the Council’s chairperson dated July 19, 2017 informing her about the whole issue. I was reliably informed that the chairperson requested that the university management should look into this matter in their meeting which preceded the just concluded one in October, 2017. I have been equally informed that when pro-chancellor came for the said meeting, she enquired why action was not taken. Furthermore, ATBU branch of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), after receiving my petitions on the exams malpractice and other issues, invited me alongside other three doctors from my faculty including the invigilator that apprehended the said candidate during the exams. The meeting held on April 18, 2017 under Prof. I.H. Garba as the convener but was represented by Prof. Abdulazeez. No action is taken so far. Prof I.H. Garba was coincidently an ASUU representative on the committee. He asked me why raising the matter which happened since 2012 now. I told him that it was started with me but when I left for my PhD programme, the matter was frustrated. I wonder how a true academic professor could ask such a question as though criminality has expiry date.
From the look of things, university management is not ready to do anything to the alleged perpetrators of the case and is like the management has ganged up against me for insisting that justice must prevail because they asked the registrar to illegally query me in order to scare me so that truth could be concealed. The letter of query was dated October 18, 2017 not October 19, 2017 as claimed by the registrar though it was received by me on October 20, 2017.
Furthermore, the registrar issued me with a warning later which I received on November 1, 2017 though, as usual it was back dated to October 30, 2017. It is important to draw attention of the Visitor on the need to retrain the Registrar of ATBU to be doing the right thing, considering the fact that it is quite unfortunate that Registrar of a Federal university cannot quote dates of correspondences correctly and could not distinguish between an ultimatum and a notice. The warning letter was full of grammatical errors e.g; paragraph three, line two refers. I think the registrar should go back and read reply of my query well with a view to comprehending it. I just comply with his request by giving the university notice on my readiness to resort to litigation as soon as the commissioner of police, Bauchi state, command concludes his investigation into the matter following my petition to his office.
According to Edmond Burtt ”for evil to succeed good men have to do nothing.” Therefore, I will not stand by and watch evil succeed.
Furthermore, I was approached by group of Post Graduate students in our faculty who claimed anonymity for fear of victimization. They complained that they were compelled to pay the sum of N20,000 as conference fees regardless of whether a student is presenting a paper in the conference or not. Investigating further on the matter, I realised that the money collected was not lodged into the TSA account as directed by Mr. President. The fact that PG students including M.Sc and PhD pay compulsorily this is considered an extension of school fees which must go into TSA. I wrote to the vice-chancellor dated May 10, 2017, drawing his attention on the need to ask the faculty to direct the purported account to TSA, which according to the students is domicile in GTB account No.1072422045.
In view of the aforementioned points , I wish to appeal to Mr. President as the Visitor to the university who, by law, is considered the highest authority in the university hierarchy to urgently set in motion investigation into the issues of exams malpractice in which the university issued a statement of result to a student despite pending case of exams malpractice as well as the refusal of management of ATBU to comply with the presidential directives on TSA in the interest of salvaging this prestigious university from total collapse by some anti-Change elements.
Dr. Idris Isyaku Abdullahi,
ATBU.
Culled from Ahmad M. Salihu.
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