Executive Secretary of the National Universities (NUC), Professor Julius Okojie, has described as a “sick joke” an allegation that he was bribed with N20,000 to grant “temporary approval” for the establishment of a purported Temple University, Orozo, Abuja.
Okojie, reacting to some media reports on the allegation on Tuesday in Abuja, said, “ordinarily, the National Universities Commission (NUC) would not want to comment on a case that is in court.”
Speaking through the Chief Information Officer of the commission, Mrs Bukola Olatunji, in a statement made available to newsmen, Okojie said he was left with no other choice, “going by the way the story of an alleged bribery of the Executive Secretary, NUC, Professor Julius A. Okojie OON has gone viral.
“The commission took one Pius Nwachukwu and his wife, Chika, to court for operating an illegal university in Orozo, a border town between the Federal Capital Territory and Nasarawa State, but in his defence, Nwachukwu claimed that he was issued a ‘temporary approval’ (a term that does not exist in NUC’s licensing regime) after giving Professor Okojie N20,000 to fuel his car. Infra dignitatem!,” the statement said.
According to online reports, Nwachukwu said: “I have a Ph.D certificate in Theology from Temple University International, my Alma Mata, and I am the representative of the school in Nigeria.”
Olatunji, in the statement, further said, “this man, who the Executive Secretary has never met, told the court that “Mr Okojie, who is the Director General (sic) of the National Universities Commission gave me the approval based on the existing relationship we had for long.”
She added: “Where is Temple University International? It is a story that all right-thinking individuals should dismiss with the wave of the hand as a sick joke, because that is exactly what it is.
“The painstaking requirements for establishing a private university are available on the NUC website.
“To imagine that anyone would claim that all these were waived for N20,000 and such a story would receive the kind of attention it has been given is as regrettable as it is laughable,” Olatunji said.
NUC spokesperson wondered where were those peddling Nwachukwu’s submissions in his defence when the authorised representative of NUC testified before the court, stating, on oath, that the so-called temporary approval was recovered by the NUC’s task force on illegal universities during a raid of the premises of the accused.
She said Mr and Mrs Nwachukwu had used the fake temporary approval, which is now before the court to support the charge of forgery against them, to deceive unsuspecting victims of their operations.
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