The Governing Council of University of Calabar will continue to be commended over a bold step taken recently towards the fight against corruption in Nigerian universities.

The governing council a few days ago, reportedly dismissed five lecturers and demoted 10 others for alleged plagiarism, financial fraud and other unwholesome behaviour.

A release issued by the Registrar and Secretary to the Council, Julia Omang, indicated that four of the dismissed lecturers were involved in plagiarism, the fifth committed financial fraud while the demoted ones published their works in fake or cloned journals and submitted same and obtained promotion in the process. The council decided that apart from being demoted, the affected lecturers will refund  all monies earned from the unmerited promotion and would be barred from promotion for the next six years. These disciplinary measures, the Registrar said, were in furtherance of the institution’s “bid to curb academic  dishonesty”.

One cannot agree less with the fact that drastic measures need to be taken to sanitise our ivory towers. For some time now, stories from many of these institutions are very depressing, where there are glaring cases of fraud, bribery, sexual harassment and others.

The case of sexual abuse between Dr Peter Otubu of Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma and Juliet Ive Okosun, a 400 level engineering student is still fresh in our memories. Many students both male and female have raised alarm over victimisation by lecturers as a  result of the students’  inability to provide the lecturers with certain amount of money demanded by these  greedy lecturers before the students pass their courses irrespective of how brilliant the students might be.

Some students are victimised for not buying books published by the lecturers and made mandatory for all students. A radio broadcaster recently narrated how he found it very difficult to purchase such books during his university days, when he found out that the compulsory book was the exact work of another foreign author.

According to him, his lecturer copied the foreign text book verbatim , change the cover and claimed it was his work. Many other lecturers churn out watery books, hand- outs and the likes every day and force them down the throats of the poor students.

Incidentally, not only those in the citadels of learning are victims of the crime of plagiarism. Many writers, public speakers, public and civil servants, students and others are all victims. They copy the works of others without acknowledging the author. We can still remember the dust raised by Victor Dike, a Nigerian – born United States –based professor’s suit against the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, whom he (Victor) accused of grossly violating his intellectual property rights by extensively plagiarizing his work in two public lectures, he (Sanusi) gave at two Nigerian universities.

The dust was still heavy in the air when the same professor dragged two professors of University of Port Harcourt to court for plagiarism. Prof Dike claimed that the accused university dons captured his work verbatim and published as their work in a journal under a different heading without properly acknowledging him as the original author.

Similarly, in 2012, a well known professor at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Uche Modum was accused of obtaining her professorship by making several false and questionable academic claims.

These dishonest acts do not in any way paint a good picture of Nigerian universities, the lecturers and their products. They merely present our lecturers as lazy people who cannot carry out thorough research to come out with their original work or worse still as people who want to reap where they did not sow.  Hardly can a writer or publisher complete his work without ideas or opinions of others but courtesy and law demand that  the original author should be acknowledged.

Incidentally, the law on plagiarism is well spelt out but enacting a law is one thing, enforcing it is another. And until these laws are implemented and some people are punished for plagiarizing, people will continue to “steal” other people’s works. When shall Nigeria begin to imitate other countries that have gone far with the war on plagiarism?

Last year, Fareed Zakaia, a United States columnist and TV host was suspended by CNN for plagiarizing sections of another  writer’s article about gun control.

In 2011, Karl – Theodor Zu Gullenberg, then defence Minister of Germany resigned after being accused of plagiarism for his doctorate work. Germany education Minister, Annette Schavan was last month stripped off her doctorate degree for plagiarism by her former University – Duessel dorf University.

So, other universities and institutions should emulate these steps. Let other institutions toe the line of Unical and fish out all corrupt staff both academic and non- academic among them who have been painting our institutions black and deal with them accordingly. Let them tackle corruption in these institutions holistically.

Speaking on the planned joint effort of National Universities Commission (NUC) and ICPC to stamp out corruption in Nigerian Universities recently, NUC Executive Secretary, Professor Julius Okojie said, “corruption is not just embezzling funds as most people will often think. For us in the university system, any act overtly or covertly that against the delivery of quality education and production of globally competitive graduates should come under corruption. As the conscience of the society, the Nigerian university system must at all times live above broad so as to reprimand others of their misbehaviour in the society.

Calista Ezeaku