Crime
UNIZIK scandal: Ambrose Alli varsity denies embattled lecturer examiner’s documents
The Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Edo State, has denied issuing two documents indicating that the embattled senior lecturer at the Nnmadi Azikiwe University, Awka, Dr Peter Ekemezie, served as an external examiner in the institution.
The Registrar, AAU, Chris Adamaigbo, said there was no record that Ekemezie was appointed an examiner in the school, adding that the documents were forged.
Despite the turn of events, the senior lecturer has continued working at the UNIZIK, even as he continued issuing death threats to our correspondent.
Ekemezie was employed by UNIZIK in July 2010, but his employment generated controversies because he was allegedly employed as Lecturer I Level 11, instead of Lecturer 2, Level 9.
Sometime in 2013, one Mrs Egolum claimed that Ekemezie collected money from her to help her process a special degree programme at the University of Port Harcourt.
Investigation into the allegation by a senior staff committee set up by the management of UNIZIK led to the discovery that Ekemezie himself was allegedly parading a forged BSc certificate.
The committee’s recommendation to the management was reportedly swept under the carpet.
A few years after, some lecturers accused Ekemezie of using plagiarised works to gain promotion and special favours from the institution, an allegation confirmed by another committee set up by the school.
Like the BSc certificate, the recommendations were also allegedly ignored.
Ekemezie himself wrote a petition to the Commissioner of Police, Anambra State, accusing some lecturers of fighting against his promotion and planting incriminating documents in his curriculum vitae to implicate him.
The police reportedly investigated and discovered that he lied. He was subsequently charged with giving false information and certificate forgery.
Still, the university did not act against the senior lecturer.
The Chairman of the Governing Council, UNIZIK, Azeez Bello, while promising that the council would act on the matter, said some members of the institution’s senate might have been compromised.
Among the alleged claims of the senior lecturer was that he was an external examiner at the University of Benin and the AAU.
UNIBEN had already denied Ekemezie’s claim, saying a document he allegedly claimed to have got from the institution was forged.
The Registrar of the AAU, Adamaigbo, on Monday also denied two documents dated July 6, 2012 and June 8, 2013, indicating that Ekemezie was invited as an examiner to the school.
The 2013 document entitled, ‘Invitation as an examiner’, was purportedly signed by one T. S. Igerhe, the Deputy Registrar and Secretary, Office of the Dean, School of Postgraduate Studies.
It read, “I am directed to invite you for the examination of six students in the research area of physical chemistry on 15th (sic) August, 2013. The theses have been forwarded to you and the university has made all logistics (sic) arrangements for the examination as contained in the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement.”
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Adamaigbo said preliminary investigation showed that the AAU never had anyone with the name Ekemezie as an external examiner in the Department of Chemistry.
He said the documents were not issued by the school.
“We have never had any deputy registrar or any other staff with the name of the author of the documents. The documents and the author are suspects,” he added.
Ekemezie did not take calls from our correspondent for clarification.
While responding to a text message from our correspondent, he wrote, “When did you change your surname from Wuyi to Folarin? By the way, did I give you any document? I think you are a gadfly. Continue with your stupidity. A day of reconning (sic) is coming.”
Prior to now, Ekemezie had sent our correspondent 18 text messages, including death threats and abuse in his native Igbo language.
Ekemezie’s former Head of Department at UNIZIK, Prof. John Nduka, said the university’s assessment mechanism was weak, adding that documents were sometimes not verified and academics got promotion with forged documents.