PRESS STATEMENT
STOP BEATING AROUND THE BUSH, COME OUT CLEAN ON THE ALLEGATIONS OF CORRUPTION AGAINST YOU – ‘QUERIED’ LECTURER CHALLENGES ABU VC.
Education Monitor newspaper, published, in its September edition, an investigative report with a kicker “How VC, Kabiru Bala, Targets ABU For Destruction, with the following five riders:
- Acquires N49m official car for self, devoid of due process, even as he decries lack of money for basic academic programs
- His Firm, cronies, wife, son, involved in scramble for juicy contracts?
- Perpetrates corruption, shields benefactors that squandered N400m
- Flouts University laws, abuses due process with impunity.
- Applies selective justice for members of Varsity community.
The report can be found on this link – https://educationmonitornews.com/how-vc-kabiru-bala-targets-abu-for-destruction/
The report was anchored by the Editor-in-chief of the monthly tabloid, Waziri Isa Adam, who is also a lecturer at the Mass Communication department of the University.
Angered by the report, the Vice Chancellor who had earlier complained that he was not contacted for his own side of the story, requested that the story be retracted and apology offered.
While the newspaper was trying to respond to his protest letter and to request him to do a rejoinder on the allegations, refuting or defending all the allegations raised in the publication, which we were ready to publish prominently to clear his name, he quickly rushed to the Press with a failed attempt to blackmail me that I could not finish my PhD at the University of Lagos after 11 years, and after having enjoyed a scholarship of the paltry sum of N1.6m.
This cheap, newsless and rediculous blackmail has no relation with the allegations of corruption which he is deeply enmeshed in.
What every discerning intellectual or scholar expected him to do as a leader occupying a public office, is he should respond to the allegations point by point, to clear his name, instead of beating around the bush by taking it personal and attacking the reporter out of context.
To resort to accusing the reporter for not finishing a PhD is nothing other than a simple attempt to distract public attention from the volumes and embarrassing allegations of corruption against the Vice Chancellor.
It will interest the public to know that there are uncountable number of lecturers who have spent more than 30 years pursuing their Phd, and there are several others who have spent more than 18 years pursuing only Masters degree within the ABU, but he has not queried any one of them, but an innocent journalist performing his watchdog function.
A typical example of the Vice Chancellor’s demonstration of selective justice is his singling me out alone for query in a public domain, and subjecting me to judgement in the court of public opinion, as if I am the first lecturer in the history of the university that took this long on a PhD pogram.
It will interest the public to know that I applied, for a one year leave of absence (permission to proceed to my University in Lagos to tidy up my work and do my defence, on my own, without requesting for salary or any form of financial support from the University), but the Vice Chancellor denied me this opportunity, which is my own right, because of sheer wickedness, and only for him to now come out, without fear of God, to mischievously misinform the public that I have failed to complete my Phd program.
For record purposes, the public need to know that the Vice Chancellor-turned-dictator who owes stakeholders of the university a duty to explain his involvement or otherwise in the alleged cases of ongoing corruption in the university, claims that nobody can challenge his authority in the University, as did by Education Monitor, that is why he resorted to adopting flawed steps to blackmail, declare an all out media war against the Editor-in-chief of the monthly tabloid.
Waziri Isa Adam