Campaign
to Save ESUT
Enugu State
University of Science and
Technology,
Enugu.
18
October, 2012
His
Excellency,
The
Executive Governor of Enugu
State,
Government
House,
Enugu.
His
Excellency,
CALL FOR SACK
OF ESUT VC FOR GROSS DERELICTION OF DUTY, UTTER INCOMPETENCE AND FAILURES OF
LEADERSHIP
The Head of Service ( HOS ) of the Government of
Enugu State, acting on the directives of His Excellency, The Governor, issued a
circular dated 8th February 2012 addressed to a long list of Chief
Executives and Chief Accounting Officers in the state public service-including
the Registrar of ESUT – directing all Ministries, Departments and Agencies
(MDA) in Enugu State to take urgent and immediate steps towards improved record
keeping, records storage and records retrieval. The affected officers were
informed of the results of a silent study which exposed the dismal, abysmal and
repulsively ineffective records management particularly in ESUT. They were
given up to 12th March 2012, a period of over a month to ensure the
retrievals and assessing of requested records in less than an hour. They were
advised to always keep weekly, monthly and annual summaries of records in both
hard and soft copies for easy accessibility. The essence of the circular is to
ensure improved service delivery in all the institutions. The circular
vehemently rejected any and all possible excuses for inability to keep and
maintain effective records viewing such inability as either incompetence or
insubordination or outright dereliction of duty which will attract the maximum
punishment of such affected chief executives.
MATTERS
ARISING
The Government of Enugu State is notified that
despite this laudable and well-meaning circular which definitely has the
authorization of the pinnacle of the Government in the office of His Excellency,
The Governor, ESUT management led by the Vice Chancellor, Prof C.O. Onyeji, has
disgustingly and woefully failed to keep and maintain records of any type thereby
causing innumerable grief, inexplicable sufferings, incalculable hardships and
irrecoverable and irredeemable losses to all and sundry in that institution of
learning. We will catalogue/list a few areas where ESUT has for the past
several years, but particularly in the last two years plus of the Prof C. O.
Onyeji’s vice chancellorship, degenerated terribly in records keeping and records
management.
1. The
accessing of students’ graduation transcripts is always a nightmare.
This is even after they have paid all their transcript application fees and
done their clearance. It takes over a period of sixteen months for some lucky
students to successfully get their degree transcripts. Many former students report
that in the ensuing frustration they are induced and forced to pay huge bribes
– in cash and in kind – to Registrar and registry staff who promise to help
them. Many graduated female former students have suffered innumerable sexual
exploitation in the hands of the Registrar, some registry staff, HODs, and
other teaching and non teaching staff in their quest to collect their
transcripts for use in processing their post graduate application forms and
also for processing employment interviews.
2. ESUT
doesn’t know their exact students’ database and this has contributed to the
labelling of genuine students as fake and illegally admitted students with the physical
and psychological trauma of rustication without thorough investigation.
This poor records keeping and records management in this area is a deliberate
policy of the institution in order to hide their internal revenue generation
potentials and prevent an effective monitoring of the internal revenue
generation by the agencies of government vested with that mandate of oversight
over ESUT.
3. ESUT
has no proper human resources database of staff despite a full fledged
personnel division of the Registry headed by high ranking Registry staff.
This has opened up avenues for ghost workers, and workers who do nothing but
collect huge salaries every month – further depleting the liquidity position of
the institution and putting avoidable strains on the finances. This fact of
extensive malpractices regarding ghost staff was unveiled by the staff audit exercise
conducted by the new management a few months after their inauguration and it
was to hide the wide scale fraudulent manipulation of staff records that that
staff audit report didn’t see the light of the day till date.
4. ESUT
has no proper records of the students who pay their school fees and those who
are still owing school fees and how much they (students) owe the university.
This we also discovered is a deliberate and premeditated policy to hide and
mask ESUT revenue so that the state government will continue to give funding
that are not properly accounted for. This has caused traumatizing suffering to
students whose examination results are confiscated and who additionally are
made to face university disciplinary panels for not paying their fees even when
many have paid and have their fees receipts! What a way of running a
university!!!
5. ESUT
has no proper records of all their past graduates and was thoroughly
embarrassed by the last conducted convocation which had a convocation brochure
that omitted the names and details of about 30 percent of graduands.
This repulsive fact is the immediate cause of the students’ nightmares and
frustrations in trying to collect their degree certificates even after many
years of graduation. This has unfortunately led to perpetual disadvantage for many
ex-students who have on many occasions missed out on employment opportunities
where the employers insist on degree certificates and reject statements of
results from awarding institutions.
6. ESUT
has no proper records of material and monetary grants and donations of workshop
and office equipment like computers, desks, generators, photocopiers,
whiteboards, workshop tools, workshop machines, etc made by staff, students,
alumni bodies, banks, business community and other organizations and this has
frequently resulted in fraudulent and illegal conversion of such donations and
grants to their personal properties by some top officers of the university.
In the process ESUT has been defrauded of huge sums of money and very expensive
equipment by some officers of the university who have taken absolute advantage
of the confusion. One case in time which we have thoroughly investigated,
reported to the school authority and other stakeholders who oversee the affairs
of ESUT is the case of over N150,000,000
(one hundred and fifty million naira) fraud committed by Professor Sylvester
Ike Oluka of the Faculty of Engineering, ESUT. Where donations of money
worth over N150 million generated during the celebration of Faculty of
Engineering at 30 was never accounted for nor was ever used for anything except
that almighty Professor Oluka, cornered the money and totally embezzled it in
broad day light. There are other frauds we have elucidated about this maverick
professor, who is, it seems owns ESUT. The worrisome aspect nay the admirable
aspect of this criminality by this professor is that he himself wrote down in
his Curriculum Vitae receipt of this money by himself and posted it in the
internet! It is unimaginable that up till date, no investigations were
conducted as to the application of over N150 million of ESUT fund. We are
surprised that at this era of anti corruption war, a single individual will
unilaterally take up to N150 million of an institution like ESUT and all the
members of that institution look on foolishly and stupidly without asking
question or at least demanding an account of expenditure of that fund. In
addition, that money was solicited using ESUT as a platform and it is
incomprehensible why the lily livered and moronic vice chancellor of ESUT
refused to conduct an inquiry into this loot. We are also equally surprised
that the governing council of ESUT has done nothing about the matter. Oh no, of
course, they cannot do anything, anybody has a prize. With N150 million cash in
Professor Oluka’s fat account, he can buy all the councillors the same way he
bought and pocket the ESUT management that they cannot probe him. The same way
he bought and pocket the ESUT Senate that they vote him into the council to
finally buy and pocket the councillors to close his case. A nice move! We need
to state at this point unequivocally that we are absolutely disappointed that a
matter that has been reported for about almost a year now with concrete
evidence of corruption, fraud, impersonation, embezzlement and glaring
criminality involving over N500 million by factoring in other sundry aspects of
this fraud and criminality is condoned because Professor Oluka is involved even
as the same institution sack some staff on charges of mere admission
racketeering. What a shame to ESUT!!!!!
7. ESUT
has no proper records of students and staff in all institutions affiliated to
it because it is a grand collusion and conspiracy by the ESUT management with
those affiliated institutions purposed to cheat and defraud ESUT of millions of
naira for the selfish benefit and personal fortification of a few top officers
of ESUT. Proper records of such
students and staff would have ensured transparent knowledge of the revenues
accruable to ESUT in virtue of their affiliation contracts and made possible
the easy accounting and capture of such revenues in the internal revenue generation
profiles of ESUT.
8. In
contravention of all extant laws for public institutions which demand
periodical- usually yearly- publication of its audited financial accounts, ESUT
has no records of the financial state of the institution, has no accounting
statements, has no statements of incomes and expenditures, has no records of their
own assets and their liabilities and has never prepared a balance sheet to show
the financial state of affairs of the institution. This has resulted in
woeful failures regarding financial management in the institution. Since the
university has no accounting records and no financial statements of its affairs
it is obvious that there is also no financial audit, in violation of all rules
for financial transparency and fiscal responsibility. This violates the fiscal
responsibility act and the laws of ESUT which demand the production and
publication of annual statements of the financial accounts of the institution.
This also assaults the taxpayers of Enugu
State from whose taxes
the monthly subventions are given to the ESUT authorities. The implication is
that the institution doesn’t know how much they owe contractors, suppliers,
staff, and consultants. They have no knowledge of their debt profiles and don’t
care to know. This is extreme irresponsibility.
9. ESUT
has no annual budget of projected incomes and anticipated revenues particularly
since the present administration of Prof C. O. Onyeji. This has
resulted in unplanned expenditures, and violation of fiscal rules and
regulations of the institution. This violates the fiscal responsibility act, an
important law made to entrench order and due process in financial matters.
10. ESUT
has no records of its own facilities and infrastructures. They don’t
have any records of their buildings, their generation plants, their road
networks, their water systems, the state of such buildings, roads, water
schemes etc.
OUR
SUMBISSION
In view of the afore mentioned and consequent upon
all the elucidated facts contained in this release, we submit that ESUT
management led by the utterly inept, anachronistic and moronic vice chancellor
and his blood sucking, parasitic, retrogressive cabal of a few persons, out and
determined to ruin the university, has
in all these catalogued/listed failings to keep and maintain the sensitive and
crucial records of the university demonstrated gross dereliction of their duties,
gross incompetence and insubordination to the authority of the Head of Service
and also to the authority of the Governor who as the Visitor to the university,
represents the Government and good people of Enugu State who are the ultimate
proprietors of ESUT. The vice chancellor has thus proved that he is utterly
incompetent and grossly incapable of running the university at the level of a
chief executive officer. The Vice Chancellor, Prof C. O. Onyeji and Barr Chris
Igbokwe, the Registrar should be sacked or removed from office for these acts
of gross dereliction of duty, gross incompetence and lack of leadership which
acts of gross ineptitude have ruthlessly and negatively affected the good people
of Enugu State and the Igbos in general since most of these students and former
students are mainly from Enugu State and the neighbouring states of the south
east zone.
God bless ESUT!
Cc
Hon. Commissioner for Education, Enugu State
Head of Service, Enugu State
ESUT Governing Council
Pro-Chancellor ESUT
Vice Chancellor ESUT
Deputy Vice Chancellor ESUT
Registrar, ESUT
ASUU, ESUT
SSANU, ESUT
NASU, ESUT
Student Union, ESUT
Ohaneze Ndigbo
The Clergy:
His Lordship, Bishop E.O. Chukwuma
His Lordship, Bishop C.V.C. Onaga
Msgr Obiora Ike
ESUT Governing Council
University Community
The General Public