ASUU Wants Prosecution Of Indicted Lecturers

The leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has called on the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) to endeavour to ensure that lecturers indicted are punished to serve as deterrent to others.

The President of the union, Dr Isa Fagge, stated this while speaking with journalists.

Fagge spoke against the backdrop of the ICPC’s resolve to further beam its searchlight on Nigerian universities after presenting findings of its University Systems Study Review which identified many misdeeds in the system.

Fagge said that the rot that the commission was set to fight in the system might not abate if it failed to take a step forward imposing stiff sanctions on those who had earlier been found guilty of corrupt practices.

He said, “corruption is in every facet of the country’s economy and this commission has not done enough in terms of punishing all those found guilty in the past, stressing that “for corruption to abate in the system, the commission must first set a tone by severely punishing offenders to serve as deterrent to others.”

According to him, it is because no stiff sanction is meted on offenders that the urge by some Nigerians to go into the practice has increased.

He stressed that “there is a case of someone who corruptly enriched himself with billions of naira and at the end of the day, after being charged to court, he made a plea bargain; only a paltry sum of the amount was returned, stressing that “these same people will be let off the hook in no time and they will be moving about freely in the society.

He said:“It is as a result of the way that ICPC is handling such issues that corrupt practices will be difficult to tackle in the country.’’

Fagge said that findings of the ICPC on universities, which were released in its report, remained mere allegations until they were proven.

He said: “we have a big rot in our university system and that has to do with facilities and infrastructure; this is largely where our interest as a union lies, stressing that “If they say they are coming to the universities to unravel the rot there, I would expect them to come up with proof of their findings because for now they are mere allegations until proven.

The chairman of the ICPC, Mr. Ekpo Nta said that the body was set up to tackle unhealthy practices in the system such as sexual harassment of students by lecturers and operations of the illegal campuses.

Nta said that the study confirmed the petitions written to the commission on corruption cases in the Nigerian tertiary institutions.

He said that some of the areas were admission and registration scandals, non-adherence to rules guiding admission, course registration problems and sale of examination questions.

Others were receipt of gratification for the award of marks, direct cheating/delay in the release of results, delay in teaching and non-completion of syllabuses.

He also listed delay in graduating due to poor performance of students, appointment of lecturers without due process, certificate forgery and running of satellite campuses without approval, among others.

Nta said that the commission would invite the proprietors of the affected institutions running satellite campuses when it was ready to implement its findings.

The chairman said the commission was planning to reduce the menace in the school system.

It would be recalled that the report presented by Chairman of ICPC was based on a study undertaken in three universities through a partnership between ICPC and the National Universities Commission (NUC).