Ugochukwu Favour, the president of the National Association of Nigerian Students in the Benin Republic, has pleaded with the government to detain journalist Umar Audu, who carried out an undercover investigation to expose corruption in the nation’s certification procedure.
During a Thursday interview on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily, Favour attacked the reporter for getting his passport stamped and getting certificates without being there.
“Your passport was stamped while you were not available there. Now, and that aside, this guy served in 2019. And he still served again in 2023,” he said.
Read What NANS Said As FG Suspends Accreditation Of Degrees From Benin Republic, Togo
According to Favour, the journalist’s undercover work exposed government collusion and called into question the legitimacy of organisations like the National Youth Service Corps and Immigration.
“He has to be arrested. This guy needs to be arrested because, I know, he’s a reporter who is trying to clear out some things, but on that note, you are trying to implicate some persons now because, in a sense, you’re trying to implicate the government, the NYSC and the immigration,” he said.
When asked by the interviewer if the reporter’s efforts exposed loopholes that should be addressed, the NANS president said, “I’m not doubting that, but then, since this is out already, I want to urge the government to look into it and take the necessary steps as fast as possible,” he responded.
According to Anaedoonline.ng, the reporter who revealed the purported degree certificate fraud in several surrounding nations was invited to a meeting at the agency’s headquarters by Musa Adamu Aliyu, the Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
How Journalist Spent N600,000 to Get Fake Degree from Benin Republic
Ecole Supérieure de Gestion et de Technologies, or ESGT, at Cotonou is purported to give degrees in as short as six weeks, circumventing the usual academic processes of application, registration, coursework, and exams. This is a worrying situation that the reporter discovered during their inquiry.
The anti-graft organisation claimed in a statement issued by Azuka Ogugua, Director of Press for the ICPC, that the reporter was invited to talk about the article that was published on December 30 about the purportedly corrupt activities at a university in Cotonou.
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