By Mustapha Muhammad
The Vice Chancellor of Federal University Lokoja, Professor Angela Freeman Miri has reacted to a story first published by The Punch Newspaper with the caption, “FG Indicts 7 Vice Chancellors for Misappropriating N896m” which Education Monitor later carried in its February Edition with the caption “FG Indicts VC, FUL, Prof. Angela, 6 Others for Misappropriating N896m”’; in which she was indicted for misappropriating N112m.
The Vice Chancellor, who called the Editor-in-Chief of Education Monitor using the mobile phone of one of her aides, several weeks after publication of the story, who she blasted for publishing the story which she said was not true and was the handwork of her detractors.
Professor Angela who, from the way she reacted to the story, seemed not to be aware that Education Monitor was not the first newspaper that carried the report, called the Editor-in-Chief with unprintable names and threatened to deal with him, should he not retract the false story.
Professor Angela who also accused Education Monitor for being gender bias and unfair to her in the report, saying “the so called Federal Government report which emanated from the office of the Auditor General of the Federation, cited me and six other Vice Chancellors, but your paper decided to focus on me alone.”
“Why did you focus on me alone and even went to as far as publishing my picture on the front page of your Newspaper thereby presenting me as the only person or Vice Chancellor that was mention in the so called report which is even outdated” she queried.
It would be recalled that the 2017 Federal Government report from the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation indicted Prof. Angela, like the other six Vice Chancellors, for non-remittance of the University’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to the tune of about N62m and payment of unapproved allowances of N51m.
Another female Vice Chancellor indicted by the federal government report in question was the Vice Chancellor of Federal University Dutse, Jigawa State, Professor Fatima Batul Mukhtar, who misappropriated a total sum of N33m; the breakdown of which was payment of N7,493,260 without voucher, irregular payment of N15,868,917 to a former Vice Chancellor, payment of N8,249,600 to a contractor without evidence of delivery of goods and overpayment of of N1.5m to another contractor.
Other Vice Chancellors of Federal University Dutsin-Ma, Oye-Ekiti, Birnin Kebbi, and Wukari were indicted for misappropriating a total of N754m.