How sacked UNIZIK VC fraudulently obtained professorship – University

The management of the Federal University, Gusau (FUGUS), Zamfara State, has disowned the sacked Vice-Chancellor of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU), Bernard Odoh.

Mr Odoh, now a disputed professor, was sacked as vice-chancellor of the NAU, popularly known as UNIZIK, about three weeks after his appointment.

He was removed as vice-chancellor after his appointment, recruitment processes and academic profile became subjects of controversies.

Professorship claim

Mr Odoh repeatedly claimed that he was appointed as visiting professor at FUGUS in 2014, but was later promoted to the rank of full professor of applied geophysics at the institution in 2015.

After his claims were challenged by the UNIZIK’s chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, the sacked vice-chancellor released some documents to prove his professorship.

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.

Others were copies of court affidavits reportedly deposed by two of Mr Odoh’s three assessors who testified that they recommended him to be promoted to the post of a professor.

A copy of another court affidavit deposed by the then registrar of FUGUS, Ibrahim Bawa Kaura, also surfaced online.

Mr Bawa, in the affidavit, testified that he was the registrar when Mr Odoh was made a professor.

‘Products of fraud’

But the management of FUGUS dismissed the claims as “tissues of lies and misinformation.”

In a statement on Thursday, the FUGUS Registrar, Yakubu Anivbassa, said the documents paraded by Mr 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,” Mr 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.

The FUGUS registrar stressed that the requirements for certification of public documents are guided by Evidence Act, 2011.

According to him, the essential requirements are payment of fees, the document must show it is a certified true copy of the original document in question.

Mr Anivbassa 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.

The registrar noted that Mr Bawa, having left the services of the 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.

‘Odoh was never our staff’

Mr Odoh had repeatedly claimed that he had been a staff member of the FUGUS and even served as a pioneer head of the department of Geology in the university.

But in the Wednesday’s statement, Mr Anivbassa said the sacked vice-chancellor was never a staffer member of the university.

“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.

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“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.