ICPC, NUC to Check Alleged Corruption in Tertiary Institutions

The acting Chairman of the ICPC, Mr Ekpo Nta said this on at a joint news conference organised by both commissions

in Abuja to examine the state of the country’s tertiary institutions.
 
Nta said that ICPC had received petitions from students, members of staff, unions and other stakeholders alleging

all manners of corrupt practices and abuses in most of the tertiary institutions.
 
The Chairman said that the abuses were highlighted as including admission processes, conduct of examinations,

appointments and promotion of staff, manipulation and falsification of academic records such as transcripts.
 
Also reported are sexual harassment and victimisation of applicants, syndicated plagiarism by students and staff,

delay or non-payment of gratuities and pension to pensioners, non-adherence to bidding processes in the award of

contracts.
 
Others are illegal accreditation processes through deception, running un-approved study centres, affiliating

programmes to accredited schools, establishing and operating un-approved and consequently illegal universities.
 
According to the Nta, the preliminary investigation of the ICPC points toward the absence of regulating systems

within the institutions.
 
He said that the commission would undertake a comprehensive system study and review of the country’s institutions

and identify which of the systems was facilitating fraud and corruption.
 
The chairman, however, mentioned the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye and

Salem University, Lokoja as the three universities that would be used for its system study.
 
Nta said that the ICPC study and review exercise would take about two weeks in each university and that a strong

team comprising university administrative experts and professional investigators would be present at each campus.
 
According to him, the outcome of the ICPC study from the three universities will be used to draw an empirical data

for policy decisions.
 
On his part, the Executive Secretary of NUC, Prof. Julius Okojie frowned at the governing structure of some private

universities, saying that some of them were violating the provisions of the autonomous act given to them.
 
``We are working to ensure that there are standard structures and quality in the system, ICPC is only coming in to

provide a support that would make us succeed.
 
``We want the Anti-Corruption Transparency Units (ACTUs) to be established in all the Nigeria universities.
 
``We believe that working with the Vice-Chancellors of the universities and other heads of departments will make

our work easy,’’ he said.