Academic profile of sacked university vice-chancellor enmeshed in controversy, says management

The management of the Federal University, Gusau (FUGUS), Zamfara State, has disowned the sacked Vice-Chancellor of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU), Prof Bernard Odoh adding that his academic profile is enmeshed in controversies.

Penpushing reports that Odoh, it is recalled was sacked as Vice-Chancellor of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU), about three weeks after his appointment following the academic status controversies, while he has repeatedly claimed that he was appointed as visiting professor at the university in 2014, but was later promoted to the rank of full professor of applied geophysics at the institution in 2015.

The Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU), chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, after challenged his claims when the sacked Vice-Chancellor released some documents to prove his professorship.

Penpushing further reports that among the documents were certified true copies of offer of tenure of appointment as Professor and confirmation of promotion to the post of a Professor, while others were copies of court affidavits reportedly deposed by two of Odoh’s three assessors who testified that they recommended him to be promoted to the post of a professor.

The copy of another court affidavit deposed by the then registrar of Federal University, Gusau (FUGUS), Ibrahim Bawa Kaura, also surfaced online and in the affidavit, Bawa testified that he was the registrar when Odoh was made a professor.

Penpushing also reports that the management of Federal University, Gusau (FUGUS), however, dismissed the claims as tissues of lies and misinformation, and the registrar Yakubu Anivbassa in a statement on Thursday, declared that the documents paraded by Odoh which he claimed the university issued were products of fraud.

“(The documents) are products of administrative fraud orchestrated by Dr. Odoh, working in cahoots with the former vice chancellor of the university and the (then) registrar (Bawa), as there is no official record of Dr. Odoh’s employment in the custody of the university’, Anivbassa said.

“Further proof of the desperation to perpetuate such illegality is the impersonation and usurpation of the duties of the current Registrar of the University by the former Registrar, Ibrahim Bawa Kaura, who procured a fake stamp to certify Dr. Odoh’s equally fake employment documents as true copies on November 8, 2024, six years after his disengagement from the university,” he stated.

Penpushing reports that the Federal University, Gusau (FUGUS), registrar emphasised that the requirements for certification of public documents are guided by Evidence Act, 2011, explaining that the essential requirements are payment of fees, the document must show it is a certified true copy of the original document in question.

The registrar of Federal University, Gusau (FUGUS) added that the document must be sealed, dated and signed by the officer responsible for issuing the document with his name and title of his office.

“A careful perusal of the above requirements and their juxtaposition against the certification of Dr. Odoh’s documents by Ibrahim Bawa Kaura, clearly shows that the so called certified true copies fell short of the provisions of Section 104 of the Evidence Act, 2011 and are therefore, not legally tenable,” he said.

Penpushing further reports that Anivbassa pointed out that Bawa,having left the services of the Federal University, Gusau (FUGUS) as a registrar since 2018, has no locus to certify any official document for and on behalf of the university.

“Therefore, the so-called certified true copies of Dr. Odoh’s documents relating to his alleged employment as endorsed by Ibrahim Bawa Kaura on November 8, 2024, are illegal, criminal, null and void and of no effect whatsoever’, he stated.

Penpushing also reports that Odoh had repeatedly claimed that he had been a staff member of the Federal University, Gusau (FUGUS) and even served as a pioneer head of the department of Geology in the university.

The registrar of Federal University, Gusau (FUGUS), however, on Wednesday in a statemen declared that the sacked Vice-Chancellor was never a staff member of the university, and has never been a tenure staff of the institution

“Dr. Odoh Bernard Ifeanyi is not and has never been a tenure staff of the university, let alone being confirmed as a professor by the institution. Whatever claim to the contrary by Dr. Odoh is nothing but the antics of a drowning man who is hell-bent on using the good name of the Federal University Gusau, to give vent to his desperate ambition to become the Vice Chancellor of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, through subterfuge,” he said.

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