The Vice Chancellor,\u00a0Abia State University (ABSU), Uturu, Prof. Mkpa Mkpa has denied arrest of any staff of the institution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).<\/p>\n
He told newsmen on Thursday at Uturu in Abia that \u201cneither the vice chancellor nor the registrar or any principal officer was\u00a0arrested by the EFCC.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe March 9 publication in some dailies was\u00a0malicious and damaging, as\u00a0all the officers allegedly arrested are\u00a0at their duty posts,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
He admitted that EFCC came to the university following a\u00a0petition by some members of an alumni group over the stoppage of certain alumni collection by the university.<\/p>\n
He said the alumni group had\u00a0submitted documents demanded by the commission on March 8, following a petition that the authorities of the institution allegedly embezzled N10 billion.<\/p>\n
According to him, the petitioner accused the officials\u00a0of\u00a0appropriating the land in the university to themselves as well as the highest number of shares in the university micro-finance bank.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state that no corrupt practice was\u00a0established against any of the officers to warrant any such action by the commission, as a result, there was no\u00a0arrest.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe\u00a0purported arrest was the devilish brain wave of a clique of self-seeking individuals masquerading as officials of ABSU alumni association,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said that the financial records of ABSU were available for scrutiny, stressing that the institution, since he assumed office, had not made N10 billion.<\/p>\n
The vice chancellor said that the allegations would not distract the university administration, adding that \u201cwe are focused and committed in our quest to make ABSU one of the best universities in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
He called on the affected media\u00a0to\u00a0retract the story and render a public apology to the officers concerned.<\/p>\n
He said that if they failed to do so, \u201cwe\u00a0will be compelled to commence legal action.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mkpa said\u00a0that journalism was a noble profession but\u00a0expressed\u00a0worry that\u00a0none of the reporters approached them to hear their own side of the story.<\/p>\n
A newspaper publication on March 9 reported\u00a0that the vice chancellor and the registrar of the university were arrested by the EFCC over embezzlement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Vice Chancellor,\u00a0Abia State University (ABSU), Uturu, Prof. Mkpa Mkpa has denied arrest of any staff of the institution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). He told newsmen on Thursday at Uturu in Abia that \u201cneither the vice chancellor nor the registrar or any principal officer was\u00a0arrested by the EFCC. \u201cThe March 9 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-south-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}